The Flat Finger: Exploring Area Touches on Smartwatches
Fingers and Technology
/
Oakley, Ian
/
Lindahl, Carina
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Le, Khanh
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Lee, DoYoung
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Islam, M. D. Rasel
Proceedings of the ACM CHI'16 Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems
2016-05-07
v.1
p.4238-4249
© Copyright 2016 ACM
Summary: Smartwatches are emerging device category that feature highly limited input
and display surfaces. We explore how touch contact areas, such as lines
generated by flat fingers, can be used to increase input expressivity in these
diminutive systems in three ways. Firstly, we present four design themes that
emerged from an ideation workshop in which five designers proposed concepts for
smartwatch touch area interaction. Secondly, we describe a sensor unit and
study that captured user performance with 31 area touches and contrasted this
against standard targeting performance. Finally, we describe three
demonstration applications that instantiate ideas from the workshop and deploy
the most reliably and rapidly produced area touches. We report generally
positive user reactions to these demonstrators: the area touch interactions
were perceived as quick, convenient and easy to learn and remember. Together
this work characterizes how designers can use area touches in watch UIs, which
area touches are most appropriate and how users respond to this interaction
style.
