by: Ken Hinckley, Koji Yatani, Michel Pahud, Nicole Coddington, Jenny Rodenhouse, Andy Wilson, Hrvoje Benko, and Bill Buxton
Authors
Due to the sheer quantity of individuals involved in this project, I can only assume that they were all Microsoft research employees at the time of this research, and perhaps are all still working with Microsoft. Perhaps some have moved on to new research areas of graphics while others specialized in multi-touch surfaces. Maybe one retired and spends his days reading the newspaper to his Cocker Spaniel by the fireplace and playing croquet. Use your imagination (it's what I did!).
Presentation Venue
"UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology" as per the document specs from the ACM digital library, dl.acm.org. The presentation took place in New York City, NY, 2010.
Summary
Pen + Touch = New Tools is exactly that: a research endeavor to discover natural interactions involving a pen, touch, and combinations of the two for new input methods in systems. The study was more or less localized to working with images and text in a notebook to create some sort of timeline for a short film or commercial.
Hypothesis
Hinckley and crew (fortunate his name is not Motley!) tried to realize a set of gestures and interactions based on preliminary research that mimicked the most natural course of action for people to assume when handling systems that involve multi-touch and stylus pens.
Methods
The research began with a user study to observe people creating a storyboard using "standard" items - a notebook, pen, scissors, glue, etc. After categorizing the observed behaviors and designing features to account for these behaviors, their system was created with a basic emphasis on the pen for writing, and the hand for manipulation, while some combination of the two allowed for new types of interaction. The new system was then tested with users.
Results
Some of the basic functionality was immediately obvious to the users, and the lack of a need for switching input modes created an opportunity for fluidity between actions. This acquired their desired "same as with the notebook" sense on the computer screen.
Discussion
Alright, I thought this presentation was going to be exactly like the Hands-on Math approach. GREAT! Another attempt at this? Well, I was pleasantly surprised. The in depth observations and studies made before designing the project really caught my attention. They attempted to see what users wanted to do before trying to implement what they deemed "the best way for users to do something." When one is trying to create a system to meet the needs of a user, where else should one look than to that user - preferably before one has some preconceived notions about how to "best" implement the idea. I believe performing this background research before diving into the project enabled them to succeed in creating a system that smoothly transitioned as if users were actually just using a notebook and magazines. They even addressed known pitfalls such as the user's palm touching the screen while writing with the pen. This project is still on a somewhat narrow scope, so I'm not positive it will be very useful by itself. I am eager to see if it creates a stepping stone for future interactions that mimic common human gestures.
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