Shengdong Zhao

Earpod: eyes-free menu selection using touch input and reactive audio feedback

We present the design and evaluation of earPod: an eyes-free menu technique using touch input and reactive auditory feedback. Studies comparing earPod with an iPod-like visual menu technique on reasonably-sized static menus indicate that they are comparable in accuracy. In terms of efficiency (speed), earPod is initially slower, but outperforms the visual technique within 30 minutes of practice. Our results indicate that earPod is potentially a reasonable eyes-free menu technique for general use, and is a particularly exciting technique for use in mobile device interfaces.

Simple vs. compound mark hierarchical marking menus

We present a variant of hierarchical marking menus where items are selected using a series of inflection-free simple marks, rather than the single zig-zag compound mark used in the traditional design. Theoretical analysis indicates that this simple mark approach has the potential to significantly increase the number of items in a marking menu that can be selected efficiently and accurately. A user experiment is presented that compares the simple and compound mark techniques. Results show that the simple mark technique allows for significantly more accurate and faster menu selections overall, but most importantly also in menus with a large number of items where performance of the compound mark technique is particularly poor. The simple mark technique also requires significantly less physical input space to perform the selections, making it particularly suitable for small footprint pen-based input devices. Visual design alternatives are also discussed.

Hunter gatherer: interaction support for the creation and management of within-web-page collections

Hunter Gatherer is an interface that lets Web users carry out three main tasks: (1) collect components from within Web pages; (2) represent those components in a collection; (3) edit those component collections. Our research shows that while the practice of making collections of content from within Web pages is common, it is not frequent, due in large part to poor interaction support in existing tools. We engaged with users in task analysis as well as iterative design reviews in order to understand the interaction issues that are part of within-Web-page collection making and to design an interaction that would support that process.We report here on that design development, as well as on the evaluations of the tool that evolved from that process, and the future work stemming from these results, in which our critical question is: what happens to users perceptions and expectations of web-based information (their web-based information management practices) when they can treat this information as harvestable, recontextualizable data, rather than as fixed pages?

Phosphor: explaining transitions in the user interface using afterglow effects

Sometimes users fail to notice a change that just took place on their display. For example, the user may have accidentally deleted an icon or a remote collaborator may have changed settings in a control panel. Animated transitions can help, but they force users to wait for the animation to complete. This can be cumbersome, especially in situations where users did not need an explanation. We propose a different approach. Phosphor objects show the outcome of their transition instantly; at the same time they explain their change in retrospect. Manipulating a phosphor slider, for example, leaves an afterglow that illustrates how the knob moved. The parallelism of instant outcome and explanation supports both types of users. Users who already understood the transition can continue interacting without delay, while those who are inexperienced or may have been distracted can take time to view the effects at their own pace. We present a framework of transition designs for widgets, icons, and objects in drawing programs. We evaluate phosphor objects in two user studies and report significant performance benefits for phosphor objects.

Elastic hierarchies: combining treemaps and node-link diagrams

We investigate the use of elastic hierarchies for representing trees, where a single graphical depiction uses a hybrid mixture, or interleaving, of more basic forms at different nodes of the tree. In particular, we explore combinations of node link and treemap forms, to combine the space efficiency of treemaps with the structural clarity of node link diagrams. A taxonomy is developed to characterize the design space of such hybrid combinations. A software prototype is described, which we used to explore various techniques for visualizing, browsing and interacting with elastic hierarchies, such as side by side overview and detail views, highlighting and rubber banding across views, visualization of multiple foci, and smooth animations across transitions. The paper concludes with a discussion of the characteristics of elastic hierarchies and suggestions for research on their properties and uses.

Zone and polygon menus: using relative position to increase the breadth of multi-stroke marking menus

We present Zone and Polygon menus, two new variants of multi-stroke marking menus that consider both the relative position and orientation of strokes. Our menus are designed to increase menu breadth over the 8 item limit of status quo orientation-based marking menus. An experiment shows that Zone and Polygon menus can successfully increase breadth by a factor of 2 or more over orientation-based marking menus, while maintaining high selection speed and accuracy. We also discuss hybrid techniques that may further increase menu breadth and performance. Our techniques offer UI designers new options for balancing menu breadth and depth against selection speed and accuracy.

InkSeine: In Situ search for active note taking

Using a notebook to sketch designs, reflect on a topic, or capture and extend creative ideas are examples of active note taking tasks. Optimal experience for such tasks demands concentration without interruption. Yet active note taking may also require reference documents or emails from team members. InkSeine is a Tablet PC application that supports active note taking by coupling a pen-and-ink interface with an in situ search facility that flows directly from a users ink notes (Fig. 1). InkSeine integrates four key concepts: it leverages preexisting ink to initiate a search; it provides tight coupling of search queries with application content; it persists search queries as first class objects that can be commingled with ink notes; and it enables a quick and flexible workflow where the user may freely interleave inking, searching, and gathering content. InkSeine offers these capabilities in an interface that is tailored to the unique demands of pen input, and that maintains the primacy of inking above all other tasks.

The adaptive hybrid cursor: a pressure-based target selection technique for pen-based user interfaces

We present the Adaptive Hybrid Cursor, a novel target acquisition technique for pen-based interfaces. To assist a user in a target selection task, this technique automatically adapts the size of the cursor and/or its contexts (the target size and the selection background) based on pen pressure input. We systematically evaluated the new technique with various 2D target acquisition tasks. The experimental results indicated that the Adaptive Hybrid Cursor had better selection performance, and was particularly effective for small-target and high-density environments in which the regular cursor and the Bubble Cursor [13] failed to show significant advantages. The Adaptive Hybrid Cursor is a novel way to improve target acquisition via pressure input, and our study demonstrated its viability and potential for pen-based interfaces.

USING GLYPHS TO FACILITATE TRANSITION FROM HIERARCHICAL SELECTION TO GESTURING

Abstract The successive strokes made in multi-stroke marking menus form gestures. This paper reports on an experimental study that examines how the use of glyphs affects performance in marking menu selection. Glyph familiarity is manipulated by comparing Chinese style and Mark style glyphs across Chinese and non-Chinese users. Performance benefits are found for familiar and memorable glyphs. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the design of marking menus and associated gestures and for the role of glyphs in facilitating the transition from novice to expert performance in menu selection.

Improving Target Acquisitions through Utilizing Pen Pressure

Target selection via pointing is a fundamental task in graphical user interfaces (GUIs). A large corpus of work has been proposed to improve mouse-based pointing performance by manipulating control display (CD) parameters (Blanch et al., 2004; Grossman & Balakrishnan, 2005; Guiard et al., 2004; Kabbash & Buxton, 1995; Worden et al., 1997) in desktop environments. Compared with mouse-based desktop GUIs, pen-based interfaces have a number of different characteristics. First, pen-based interfaces typically use absolute pointing via a direct input device (i.e., a pen), which is very different from indirect input, such as using a mouse. Second, in addition to the 2D position (x, y) values, many pen-based devices offer additional sensory properties (such as pen pressure values) that can be useful for interaction. Third, many pen-based interfaces have limited display space and input footprint. As the amount of information displayed on the screen increases, users have to select smaller targets. This is especially obvious in mobile products, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), pen-based mobile phones, and other mobile pen-based applications. Compared with the extensive studies carried out for mouse-based pointing, more empirical studies are needed to determine how we can improve pen-input usage and efficiency. Although previous studies have intended to exploit novel pen-based selection techniques, such as Slide Touch (Ren & Moriya, 2000), Drag-and-pop (Baudisch et al., 2003), Bubble Radar (Aliakseyeu et al., 2006) and Beam Cursor (Yin & Ren, 2006), these techniques were mostly designed for situations where targets are sparsely distributed across a display space. When targets are smaller and densely packed, the benefit of these techniques tends to be diminished or become unavailable.