Shift - Use Your Finger on a PDA

From Microsoft Research:
http://patrickbaudisch.com/projects/shift/index.html

Retrieving the stylus of a pen-based device takes time and requires a second hand. Especially for short intermittent interactions many users therefore choose to use their bare fingers. Although convenient, this increases targeting times and error rates. We argue that the main reasons are the occlusion of the target by the user's finger and ambiguity about which part of the finger defines the selection point. We propose a pointing technique we call Shift that is designed to address these issues. When the user touches the screen, Shift creates a callout showing a copy of the occluded screen area and places it in a non-occluded location. The callout also shows a pointer representing the selection point of the finger. Using this visual feedback, users guide the pointer into the target by moving their finger on the screen surface and commit the target acquisition by lifting the finger. Unlike existing techniques, Shift is only invoked when necessary—over large targets no callout is created and users enjoy the full performance of an unaltered touch screen. We report the results of a user study showing that with Shift participants can select small targets with much lower error rates than an unaided touch screen and that Shift is faster than Offset Cursor for larger targets.

Shift is a Microsoft Research Project
http://research.microsoft.com

Daniel Vogel, University of Toronto http://www.nonsequitoria.com

Patrick Baudisch, Microsoft Research http://www.patrickbaudisch.com

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• shift
• finger
• pen
• pda
• touch
• interaction
• research
• cursor
• offset
• hci
• microsoft_research
• touchscreen
• interface

[Damoskinos]

Why not use a pencil and paper?

The narrator has a dreary voice and I'm losing the will to live

[gamesenmaikel]

I love Pda's

[iplay360]

isnt this what the ihpone uses too? the magnifier?!

[fredo69]

THIS SI SGOOD.!

[DJNITR0]

Any news about this?

[streather]

wow, now THAT is pretty goddamn nifty, makes me want to buy another pocket pc now just to try that out ^_^

[optical10]

YES, YES, YES Please already! I'm running a Dell x51v PDA and I'm willing to partake in a BETA TEST program?

Thankz Optical10