Input Devices
From CS 160 Fall 2010
Slides
Readings
Ken Hinckley, Input Technologies and Techniques, in Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction, ed. by A. Sears & J. Jacko. Revised online version, Read Sections 1-3 and 7-8.
Bill Buxton, Multi-Touch Systems that I Have Known and Loved.
Your Response
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Adib Kashem 14:53, 27 September 2010 (PDT)
Test
James Yu 21:01, 20 September 2010 (PDT)
Overall, the first reading was a nice overview of different input devices and how they affect user interaction. The part that resonated with me most was the discussion of different states. On the touchscreen, the mouseover function is impossible to do because once you lift your finger, there is no longer a coordinate. Since I have a tablet PC, I also agree with the part that said it was hard to hover with a pen. I also noticed it included a part about virtual keyboards that allow you to enter a word without lifting the finger, something recently implemented in Swype. For Bimanual Input, an example I have is when playing computer games where the mouse moves the camera, while the keyboard buttons moves the character.
Sean Tai 23:27, 20 September 2010 (PDT)
In the first reading, the idea of sensors automating tasks for humans was intriguing. An example given was that of doors opening automatically through the use of motion sensors. Efficiency in HCI should increase significantly once sensors are used more; a possible technology for this is an eye tracking camera.
It was nice to see the stylus mentioned several times in the second reading. My project group noted in my CS 169 group last year that it was often difficult to press buttons using one’s finger on the Nexus One touch screen. We ended up having to increase the sizes of our buttons to make them easier to press, but this decreased the amount of free space on the screen. I think styluses would be useful for smart phones for when fingers do not produce enough precision, and thus am surprised that none of the mainstream phones seem to ship with them. The reading on multi-touch development was also very informative. It showed multi-touch came about from a lot of academic/private research. Although a lot of people feel Apple "invented" multi-touch and the common pinch/zoom or flick gestures, it does show these ideas existed very long ago. It also mentioned multi-hand, finger direction, object detection techniques that have not fully been put to use in the commercial space yet, so it will be interesting to see what products come out in the future that utilize these techniques.
Jeremy Sasson 01:22, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
The first reading gave me a real appreciation for the amount of detail that goes into designing input devices, all the way to the state diagrams that are created for each device and its possible scenarios. I really enjoyed the timeline of all the different devices in the second reading. Particularly interesting was the fact that a multi-touch screen was first invented in 1984. This goes to show that some things are simply invented before their time, as the multi-touch screen did not become a mainstream item until just recently. I also enjoyed the Portfolio Wall- it reminded me of the device used in the movie Minority Report--perhaps this device was inspiration for the directors of the movie.
Alan.choi 01:42, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
The first reading was mind boggling because of how much thought goes into input devices. One would think that such things would be obvious, but they aren't. They might be common sense, but if you aren't thinking about them, then you'll miss them. It was also nice to read about some of the numbers and experiments that went into these designs.
Whenever I use a Mac, I always still try to right click purely with the mouse, but that doesn't apply because Apple mice have only a single button. And because of that, I will feel that I'm missing something from that "lack" of a dimension that I'm typically used to.
The second reading made me pause for a second and think, especially when it first called the keyboard multi-touch. It had not really occured to me that was really the start of it.
Courtney Wang 11:00, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
"Input Technologies and Techniques" was a really good insight into the theoretical aspects of user input. It gave me great insight into the thinking behind how designers of modern technologies like the iPhone and tablet PCs think about the best way to have a user perform a certain task. The idea of the state diagrams for input device states is a great abstraction and formulaic way for structuring device actions to perform tasks. Many of the things mentioned in this article indeed seem like common sense once you become aware of them, but the important thing to realize is that most people who aren't designers don't focus on the details when the details are the most important part of user input. For example, the debate between finger and stylus brought up a great point about how the finger can often obscure the screen. I never really noticed it before, but when I thought about it, I realized how many of my input frustrations with my iPhone in terms of texting and playing various finger input games like Tap Tap Revolution arise because they force me to use my thumbs, which leads to view blocking.
The phrase that really stuck with me in the second article was the author's main mantra: "Everything is best for something and worst for something else." In the age of the smart phone and the iPad, designers are trying to create singular machines that can replace a multitude of devices. I think the leaps in design will revolve around creating interfaces and using user input techniques that dynamically change depending on what the user wants to do, like Buxton mentions a few times regarding tablet machines. Rather than try and replace devices that work, it's more important to figure out how you can integrate the device functionality or even the device itself into your machine.
Alex Aberle 14:32, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
I really enjoyed the discussion of the "three phase" interaction model, especially how it applied to touch-screen devices. I have had a feeling along those lines many times before, for example when trying to activate a mouseover effect on a website and finding it quite difficult and unintuitive on my iPhone. On the other hand, hovering is as natural as can be with a mouse. Now I realize that that is because a touchscreen has goes from "dragging" to "null", with no tracking state in between.
The second reading was...scattered and somewhat poorly written and formatted, but still interesting. I had no idea that multitouch interfaces had such a long history. I guess it's just that they've only been viable for mainstream electronics for a few years. I really liked the Simon, the original touchscreen phone. Way ahead of it's time, for sure.
Bernardw 14:57, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
I think the transformation of input devices from trackball to mouse to touchpad is great, however, I think the trouble with input devices is that little do they offer the same degree of accuracy as the keyboard does. There are some 'side' input devices like accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, that are embedded inside mobile devices like Android and the iPhone are also contributing significantly to the user experiences, but is often under valued. I think what’s missing from a mobile device nowadays is actually a range finder, or something that gives relative positions to other users at close range. The current GPS coordinates are not precisely enough to give accurate depiction as to let mobile phones functions as game console controllers. Which is really sad.
Don Arboleda 15:19, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
Just reading the introduction, that's something I had never really noticed before--that outputted feedback is a very important part of handling input well. It was the nagging feeling that I got whenever I enter passwords on commandline interfaces; no characters appeared so I could never be sure if I had pressed the key or not. The description of the mouse was also amazing. There were so many design decisions made to make sure everything works without a real hitch--even the pressing of the buttons were made to remove the risk of accidental moving.
It looks like there are really so many things to think about when trying to decide the capabilities of a touch-sensitive input. I especially like the comparison between stylus use and finger use. Because I prefer the use of a stylus to prevent finger oil getting all over a screen, one of my biggest gripes with Apple's iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad are their apparent lack of stylus sensitivity. I'd rather no one touch my screens with greasy fingers, thanks.
Jonathan Look 17:20, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
Both articles mentioned bi-manual input devices to take advantage of idle limbs. Often times I try to use my keyboard with my nonpreferred hand to expedite actions (like copy/paste with shortcuts and select with preferred hand). Of course, this is a very limited case, but the idea does have merits and perhaps we will see more input devices that utilize bi-manual input in the future.
While reading this article, I also saw a reference to some issues with surface displays (which I imagine extend to bad posture). It made me think of current input devices today that require the user be in specific positions. While in a relaxed position in my chair, I found myself having to move to reach my mouse to scroll further to read more. I think the use of motion based devices (like the department store doors) and other technologies can perhaps improve the limited use positions of devices, something like that movie Gamer for example.
Frank Chew 17:37, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
Ken Hinckley points out that a pda is not capable of supporting all the functionality we are used to with the PC and mouse. For example, there is a lot of functionality that we get from the right-click, and double-click that isn't common in a PDA. I learned from this article that the right-click functionality *is* possible, just after half a second of touching. There are not many mobile applications that use this yet.
I was surprised to learn that area of contact is measurable with touch screen tablets. Does this work for the Archos? (Is this information available in the Android API?) It would be neat to take advantage of the area of contact information for the drawing application. I would be interested to see which between Android and iPhone is most competitve in the API giving access to information such as Degree of touch, Angle, and force vectors.
Richard Laroue 18:17, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
The first article gives a really thorough analysis of input devices and their uses. It says that in order to build successful input devices, you need to understand how the devices will be used by their users and also, you need to understand what capacities and tendencies each user has. Some of the important points to remember about input devices (at least for pointing devices) were: property being sensed, dimensions of motion of device, time it takes to acquire device for use, and whether the user achieves their goals directly or indirectly. The thing that caught my attention most in this article is the section about procedural memory. Because people are capable of learning some task well enough that it requires little (or no) conscious effort, designers of input devices can integrate complex tasks to provide more features. The second article on multi-touch technology was also very interesting, mostly because it was interesting to see how some of the features I use on my MacBook trackpad came about.
Karthik Jagadeesh 19:57, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
It was interesting to read the “Input Technologies and Techniques” article from the Microsoft research group. It talked about the different thought processes behind many of the UI devices that we use on a daily basis such as the keyboard and the mouse. For example, I had never realized that keys on the keyboard were positioned so that letters that were commonly after each other were on opposite sides of the board. This makes it so that the person can move one hand to the next letter while they push the letter that they need.
In the second article, it described the history of multi-touch devices, and it was amazing to realize that this technology has existed since the 1980s. The major source of innovations is not in coming up with new products but in improving upon the old ideas. An interesting thing the article talked about was that since people are used to lot of technologies, it’s hard to switch over to something completely different even if it’s a better technology.
Benjamin Carpenter 19:58, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
The first article mentions many details for estimating the performance of input devices, based on the size of things and the amount of time needed to (re-)learn a new or different input device (such as a different mouse, or different keyboard layout [Dvorak]). Observations such as Fitz's law are a more quantitative way of deciding the tradeoffs of using different input devices/UIs, and deciding whether or not to implement a new method, or maintaining a well-known current (but less efficient) method.
The second article gives interesting historical facts about current touch input technology. I was interested to learn where the "flicking" gestures and the "pinching" multi-touch gesture on the iPhone was inspired from (and how old it was). It is also interesting to see that some smart touchscreens can even differentiate between stylus (high-resolution) and finger (low-resolution) inputs, in order to display stylus writing very accurately.
Derrick Tao 21:10, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
It is amazing to learn that there has been so much thought in how different user inputs affect the users interactions. I feel like most of it was straight forward but after reading the first article, I realized that the design was made in way so that I would react in a certain way. I also liked the detail description about touch screens and how that affects the user's experience. The second reading had a lot of cool multi-touch systems that have been around for quite awhile. I learned that multi-touch has been around why before it started becoming popular.
Avery Gee 11:49, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
When reading the multitouch article a few points come to mind. First, while it does seem that our current systems of touch input are generally really basic and don't take full advantage of what touch and hand input could be, if this were to change and we were to get the most effective, radically different form of input, I suspect the learning curve would be pretty steep. Also, I think the point about the look a feel could be expanded. Look is much more important when you don't get any feedback from the feel. If there were some way to give you feedback from your hand movements other than visual input, then feel would be much more important than it currently is. Another thing is that it would be nice if when they develop new methods of input, if users don't have to read a manual and memorize a bunch of hand gestures. It would make someone really rich if they could find out what was most intuitive for people so that they didn't have to learn a new set of less than ideal gestures. I think this field doesn't have a whole lot of history with the majority of users (ie: most users don't have experience with full hand gesture interfaces) so this is an opportunity to do things right the first time. This way when technology develops people don't have habits that make future innovation difficult to accommodate for.
In input technologies article, I think a cool way to get whole hand input would be to make some kind of glove with sensors all over it. It would be kind of an indirect form of input since you wouldn't actually be touching the screen, but if technology progresses into 3d, a sensor glove would make things possible like reaching into a frame and grabbing things, touching things, pushing, and doing all sorts of things that would be really intuitive.
Calvin Wang 21:50, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
Hinkley's Handbook gives a comprehensive overview of input devices (especially pointing devices), their classification, and their properties. The Handbook almost made me feel that if this course focused on input devices, then it would be the textbook of choice. I really liked the brief tour of pointing devices, which is the first time that I've learned what these different devices do in such detail. I've always treated touchpad and tablet as synonymous with each other, until I learned the subtle differences in this book.
Buxton's article, on the other hand, is a lot shorter but more illuminating (although obviously never edited carefully). I own an iPad and use it every day since I bought it, but the idea never came to me that a touch screen can potentially "feel" 3 more dimensions: degree of touch (pressure), angle of approach, and force vectors. Incorporating these dimensions on touch devices like the iPad would definitely be paradigm-shifting to the existing interaction patterns, which already attract plenty of attention.
Theron Ji 22:24, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
One intriguing point I found from the first article is the idea of using both hands to accomplish a task - something that only applies to typing on a keyboard in today's computer. I find it an interesting idea to try to extend the usage of both hands to more functionality than just typing, because it seems logical that it could help accomplish tasks much quicker and efficiently (imagine trying to type with one hand, and how slow that is).
For the second article, I found its description of touch-tablet vs touch-screens confusing. On another note, I found his story about the mouse taking almost 30 years to catch on very intriguing. I wonder what the reason behind that was, and whether it might apply to the growth of the touch-based interfaces that are slowly catchng on.
Andy Lin 22:52, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
One thing that I totally agree on the first article is that a direct device is not necessarily easier to use. I admit that soft keyboard is really convenient to use for mobile device. However, I never get used to press the right key in the first time since the key is small and I cannot tell whether I press the key or not after the letter was shown. The article also points out that the users must look at the soft keyboard while typing which can reduce the typing speed for huge amount. This is another reason that I believe that direct devices are not always good. However, I was surprised by the second article that people started to develop touch screen from such an early time. And I believe that many things can be replaced by the touch screen since the multi-touch system has become much more reliable and people are able to design interest interface.
Chris Song 23:31, 21 September 2010 (PDT)
After reading over these articles a few things immediately came up in my mind. Firstly, it is just amazing that even with all the improvements in technology, devices built 100 years and 40 years ago still dominate the input device market today! Also, I realized that all these devices tried to find a solution in a very general usage of the device. I think there is a simple test to see if the device feels comfortable enough for regular users. It's called games! We already know that joystick devices cannot complete with keyboard and mouse because gamers who play first-person-shooter, refuse to play with joystick. In fact, we can see how inferior the joystick is compared to keyboard and mouse simply by the fact that games like Starcraft will never be ported correctly to consoles. Gamers do not have the patients to learn to use an input device that does not work. This fact can be used to further study the usefulness of any future input device by testing it out with gamers.
As far as touchscreen is concerned, only way I can see it working at all is if the screen is embedded to your desk. The biggest problem with touchscreen(outside of tablets, which is similar to having it on the desk) is the there is tremendous fatigue involved in holding one's hand up on the screen. However, if you can get the screen to lay flat on the desk, then I think there is a future for the touchscreen to replace keyboard. As more and more of us get used to the idea of using touchscreen input, we won't have to think about using it. That means we can compound the input w/ voice command to challenge keyboard and mouse. Most importantly, generation of kids growing up using iPad may feel that touch is already more comfortable than keyboard! Therefore, I believe that there is definitely a hope for replacing keyboard and mouse in the near future.
Daniel Yoo 12:11, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
The first reading made me realize how important for the designers have to first understand input technologies and the task requirements of users’ needs, in order to have a better chance of designing interaction techniques that match a user’s natural workflow. It was fun to read about some properties where I could directly relate it to my experience. For example, even when I use a smartphone keyboard, sometimes typing could take a while because of the small keyboard. The solution to that was whenever people type incorrect word or spelling, the smartphone gave a list of recommended words which could help a lot instead of fixing manually. I was surprised to the fact that the multi-touch screen was first invented in 1984. It showed how much the multi-touch screen had been improved, just by looking at some product like MacBook or Smartphones.
Melissa Lim 00:20, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
"Input Technologies and Techniques" gives a great insight to the benefits and limitations of various input devices. It is important to consider the user's natural workflow when deciding on implementing a particular tool. However, company policies should also be considered; for example, Apple is known for handheld touchscreen devices so a new product will most likely follow the trend. I enjoyed learning about the evolution of the touchscreen and how it took many iterations and design improvements to get to where that technology is today. As user needs develop over time, it is interesting to see how technology adapts to these changes and provides solutions as new problems arise.
Sui Kun Guan 00:13, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
In Hinckley's handbook, it gives a brief overview of all kinds of input devices. For me, the most interesting part of this handbook is the theory of different states of input devices. There is a 3-state model, and not every input device has all 3 states available. Therefore, when designing an input device, the designer has to consider what states he/she wants in the device, and the physical properties of the device should be able to provide the transformation between these states. In Buxton's article, it gives a brief review of the development of input devices. Some input devices in the past are interesting. For example, the Bi-Manual Input, it requires the user to use both hand. It is useful because it increases the performance of the devices. It is also mentioned in the handbook, this device can improve the efficiency of some common tasks.
Geobio Boo
The Microsoft document helped me realize and solidify the differences in input. I've disliked that touch screens don't have a suitable "right click" of computers, but that is a interface limitation. The document points out the limitations, and the switching of modes (touching vs not touching for touch-screens, or the movability of a cursor for a mouse). Since I'm primarily working on touch screens, the big part for me is to realize the limitation (it's tap only, plus dragging while touching the screen). As for other input types, gestures are a great way to create more usability from the touch screen which would otherwise be limited to tapping and dragging. There's android.gesture for that :)
And the other multi touch article shows good and bad of previous multitouch interfaces, and explicitly points out the different characteristics... not much to say here, but lots to ponder.
Tiago Bandeira 01:48, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
As far speech recognition (8.1) is concerned I largely agree Hinckley. Android works well when simple voice commands are given. For instance, “navigate to x” works nine out of ten times assuming x isn’t too obscure of a name/place. However, if you try to use android to take what you are saying and convert it into another language and then output the text as audio it doesn’t work too well. Even the time it takes to convert speech into text is annoyingly long in comparison to simply typing in what you want.
It’s amazing that Plato IV in 1972 had a flat panel plasma display as well as a touch sensitive grid. Each element alone was way ahead of its time. Both seem like modern inventions because they have recently made their way into mainstream consumer products but they are clearly the work of years of refinement.
Albert Tseng 02:11, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
The Handbook of HCI detailed the scope of input technology and design, and described the considerations that must be made in dealing with different types of input. I found it to be a thorough overview of the advantages and disadvantages that come with each individual input design. The piece by Buxton was an interesting read on the main points of consideration in touch systems and the history of touch systems themselves. It was insightful to make connections between and along the evolutionary lines of different modes/styles/flavors of input devices.
Raymond Williams 02:51, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
Here's a thought: Why touch when you can think? Thought controlled devices are the future. How many times have you played a game with a cheap game-pad and your character falls into an endless pit, runs into a spike, or punches when you meant to block? Didn't you think to yourself "I didn't mean to press that!"
Games aside, there are many reasons to avoid touch altogether. The medical industry alone would benefit from efficient mental controls for communicating with wounded patients in hospitals, paralyzed people, mental patients, and more.
I remember my grandfather saying to me when I used a remote control: "I used to have to actually get up to change the channel."
Maybe I will tell my grandchildren someday as they control machines with their minds: "I used to have to actually press a button!"
One problem involving "Degree of touch / pressure sensitivity": A touch-pad that's too sensitive is annoying because it's constantly accepting input (we just can't hold still enough), while a simple on/off pad could either have the same sensitivity problem or be way too hard to press (which is just as annoying).
Karl He 02:57, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
It seems that the reason the QWERTY keyboard and mouse have persisted for so long isn't just because it is hard to change. The newer technologies, while nice in some ways, fail to meet the accuracy and speed that can be offered by a keyboard and mouse.
There are some things which alternative input devices are just better for. Drawing, for example, is much better with a touch screen input. The keyboard and mouse just aren't good at capturing freeform movement.
For most use, however, a touchscreen can end up being rather impractical, especially without an alternative keyboard input.
That said, the space being ventured into by game system is of particular interest to me. In some ways its a bit of a gimmick, but the Wii has shown a few ways in which motion-detecting technology can be employed, and hopefully the newer systems will push this further.
Sara LaVigna 03:04, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
Buxton brought up that in real life, we often have different tools for different tasks such as a collection of knives in the kitchen but technology, especially touch screen technology, follows the "less is more" and less complex systems. Instead of carrying around a lot of gadgets, one can help you with everything - at least to a certain extent. Mobile phones nowadays are becoming that device that is ubiquitous and therefor needs good design to suit the needs of the user.
Hinckley summarized quite nicely the limitations of different methods and the compromises between choosing each one such as whether or not to use a stylus or just fingers. The choice of device and input method influence the level at which a user is thinking about what they are doing to get a certain result like keyboard typing verses one-handed text input.
Before reading these two articles and going to class on Monday, I started feeling like a lot of the touch screen technology is overused. As Buxton points out, there are many limitations since touchscreen is such a visual system - it's harder for blind people to use it and to use the device while your vision is needed elsewhere. However, in moderation, this addition of all of the touchscreen technology like multitouch and sensors that give context is really cool and I think the possibilities of incorporating a lot of the functionalities into other devices is really cool. It reminded me of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7_mOdi3O5E this video I saw about the "Future of Screen Technology."
Adam Vogt 03:08, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
I think the thing I found most interesting about this article was the section about speech recognition. This paper seems to take a pretty negative stance when it comes to using speech as an input method. The article suggests that a computer’s ability to use speech will always be limited. There are two things that stand out about this. First, Microsoft’s search engine Bing is driven in large part through the use of natural language processing. Second, Microsoft’s Sync technology that is integrated into some Ford cars uses speech as the only input method and is quite successful. While speech may not be ideal in every situation, there are many situations where it is not only effective, but as in the case of Sync it is pretty much the only viable input method.
Soroosh Izadian 04:18, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
I liked the idea of Bimanual input in both texts. Being able to operate another input device with the non-dominant hand for example can make accomplishing many tasks easier and faster . As Buxton says we don't want to be limited to "vocabulary of a fruit fly" controlling only one point on the screen. So multi-touch is an extension of single touch or trackpad technology and allows the user to use multiple fingers (and muscles) to interact with the input device. Multi-touch trackpads (multi-finger/gesture sensing) are my favorite input devices in that sense. Also it is possible to track several hands or several objects on a surface and hopefully using this technology we can make input devices that have improved feel as well as the look.
Bichen Wang 04:41, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
Input devices these days are becoming more innovative. However, we have yet to find something significantly better than the mouse and keyboard input scheme for most applications. On a full-sized computer, apparently not much improvement has been given to the very thing that feeds into the computer, and this paper notes that there really is not much else to do with it. Yes, mice have become optical and keyboards have become more ergonomic, but they still have designs that are decades old. Since these designs are so old, we must certainly ask “is there a better way to do this?” I’d really want to see something that makes computers easier/faster to use. Multi-touch seems to be an incredibly old idea that really is just starting to bloom. Buxton seems to notice that touch devices need a lot of work and that improving input is much more efficient in improving the human enjoyment of computers than improving the display. It was also quite surprising to notice that keyboards are technically multi-touch. Looking at the long history, it definitely seems like touch screens and multi-touch will become something not only on mobile devices but also on PCs.
Mark Wei 07:39, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
It's important that the first article brings up the point of "occlusion," where a touch-based input device has part of its display blocked by the finger which operates it. I find that this is a problem that isn't discussed normally, especially now that smartphones are becoming more and more popular. For a 4-inch Android smartphone, if a designer wants to fit multiple widgets on one screen, each widget must be very small, possibly smaller than your finger. When I'm dragging around a SeekBar, for example, I always have to move and tilt my head to look AROUND my finger, to see if I've dragged the thumb to the right position. The same thing happens when I'm in the browser, and I want to click a link that is surrounded by many other links. My finger blocks my vision, and I often click on the wrong thing accidentally.
Samantha Paras 08:06, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
Buxon's article gave a good overview of the different touch devices that exist in the market today. It's interesting to see the progress Multi-Touch systems have made. One thing I took away from Hinckley's article is the fact that multi-touch systems are so different from the standard keyboard/mouse/monitor systems most people have gotten used to. I never thought about the difference between the two systems and how one has to adapt to use the new touch system. For example, mobile apps must keep in mind that their users don't have a constant cursor, which may alter their design. However, now multi-touch seems extremely natural. I'm sure it took a lot of time and research before it reached this point, as pointed out by Hinckley who goes into detail the different properties and theories involved.
Christine Lu 09:24, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
The second reading by Bill Buxton was very illuminating as to the many different possibilities there are available to touch devices. In particular, he gives some examples of touch techniques that aren't as widely used, but could be very interesting for developing new apps, such as pressure sensitivity, angle of approach, and multiple-person vs. multiple-touch. One that stood out to me was pressure sensitivity, since it reminded me of taking a picture on a camera. Typically, we press the button down halfway to focus the shot, and then all the way to take the picture. I believe most users have become accustomed to a camera behaving this way, but if we were to translate the same half/full press idea to the touchscreen, we may not have the same success because of the lack of tactile response from a touchscreen. For instance, for the camera, we can feel the button become more resistive when we reach the halfway point, but for a phone, pressing lightly versus pressing hard on the same surface generates no difference in tactile response from the screen. I thought this was interesting since many touch-screen devices include cameras but don't have this capability, and we don't hear much complaint from users about it, and yet most people can transition between the two types of picture-taking buttons easily.
Brian Maissy 09:38, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
Reading the first selection, I found myself becoming less open minded about the realm of possibilities for interface devices. I wonder if our reliance on the current standard interface devices is unnecesarily bounded by a functional fixedness, or by a set of traditional interface paradigms which are difficult to change because of user habit? Chapter 2 refers to "the full set of graphical interface primitives, including click, drag, double-click, and right-click." Who says these are the graphical interface primitives? They are the result of the mouse as the primary input device. But imagine a purely voice-activated interface. It requires none of these interface primitives, nor binds the designer to the traditional idea of what a computer desktop should look like. It mentions how a touch screen is only a two-state device with only one state that detects motion, saying that this makes it difficult for it to implement the same interactions as a mouse. This is not a problem if we get out of the cursor paradigm, which has been done very successfully on apple's touch-screen devices.
The second reading was fascinating! I had no idea that all those interfaces existed. I think one of the main issues with multi-touch input is making it intuitive. For example, the two finger spread to enlarge an image on an iphone is a very intuitive way to use multi-touch. The three fingers slide on the macbook is much less so. I find myself forgetting how many fingers to use to accomplish different things. Touch-based interfaces should attempt to recreate natural manipulation of real objects.
Steven Kisely 11:17am, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
The reading was an interesting breakdown of the different forms of input. I have never seen a list such as this that made me realize how many different forms there are. I have also never taken into consideration “Homing” time or “Device acquisition.” The idea that the keyboard was the first multi-touch device is rather eye opening. I had never realized this before today. What we are working on today is built off whats been around 50 years.
Vincent Rodriguez 11:27, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
I never really thought about how my input devices worked, and now that I've read the first article, I understand now that this is all due to how well they have been designed. The amount of work invested in making them feel as natural as possible has made it so that the vast majority of input devices now feel second nature when working with devices. I find it disappointing that the most prevalent device is still the mouse though. Decades after its conception and its still the best device we have. Although touch devices look like they're slowly gaining momentum, realistically, and from what I gathered from the second reading, they still have a long way to go.
Seng Heng 11:34, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
I found the first reading quite interesting because of its age - as far as I can tell it was written before the current crop of 'active motion' input devices such as the Wii or the Playstation Move. The author delineates various paradigms for input but as far as I could tell didn't expound on how they related to the 'natural' human-tool interaction, only that they (the keyboard, for example) have been around forever and are unlikely to fall out of favor. What was also interesting was the length of analysis on the stylus, which as far as I can tell has faded out completely in favor of a touchpad.
Multitouch devices seem to me to have a similar problem to the Palm 'Graffiti' - for maximum utilization they require a series of gestures to be learned, necessitating a learning curve. An evolution of the multitouch device to the 'natural touch' ('grab' a window and pull to drag it) would seem like the next big thing.
Robert Connick 11:44, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
Some of those touch devices sounded very interesting. I especially liked the sound of tracking multiple people's hands or sensing the angle of approach. I wonder now if, with biometric scanners, a touchscreen or touchpad will be able not only to track multiple touches, but also identify the specific users doing the actions. However, I do agree that no matter how cool touch sensors get, the mouse is still too good at pointing to be replaced. The first reading I didn't think was closed-minded, since it highlighted some real problems with a single-touch input system. It's true that there are only a few ways to input via a single touch, and supporting gestures can get awkward because they are more complicated motions. But at the same time, that's why multi-touch can be so great; it offers a plethora of distinct, spatially intuitive movements to the user.
Aaron Loessberg-Zahl 11:53, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
The first article on input methods got me thinking more about the advantages and dilemmas that come along with pen-input tablet devices than I had before. I had been thinking about buying one, and I hadn't realized until now just how complex the input scheme would have to be. Also, it's nice to read an article in support of the mouse as the primary directional input to a computer for a change; I've been seeing too many lately that think an input revolution is in order.
The multi-touch article, I think, but my feelings about the mouse into words best, saying, "Those who try the replace the mouse play a fool’s game. The mouse is great for many things. Just not everything." I was surprised that multi-touch research had been going on for so long, which is nice, since it gives me an excuse to regard Apple less highly for commercializing it. His section on contrasts is the best part of the article, in my opinion, clarifying several misconceptions I had regarding touchscreens.
Danica Shei 11:55, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
It is interesting to see how much effort is put into the user interface for the most popular/useful applications in the market. It was also intriguing to see that these ideas and devices have been around for decades. I had no idea multitouch was invented so many years ago when it seems to be such a novel idea on current technologies. I also can appreciate the effort that goes towards making these devices and UI integrated into people/user's daily lives. For example, now that I got an iphone I realize that i cannot text without looking at the screen because the touch pad's downfall is that there is no grip or any keys to tel you whether youre typing in the correct area. And also our finger size limits how small our phones can become because it would be impoosible to type once the keyboard becomes too small.
Sung Ma 12:11, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
To me, the most important part of the reading was the six properties of input device. This part of the reading gave me information on something that we might be able to know without that so much thought. But it is very different from actually reading and learning something than just thinking that its a common sense. Also, the section on input device states were very interesting to me. It was really easy to figure out the pro's and con's of various devices looking at the states and diagrams. The second reading was very organized and gave overview to most of the input devices. This was one of those readings that I would read anyway even if it wasn't for the homework. It was very interesting to me to see all different kinds of input devices from early ages to current.
Richard Nguyen 12:26, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
I think that it's incredible how much effort is put into the input devices that are used in popular devices. They seem so intuitive but I guess from a design perspective, there are plenty of other potential options that will fall short of what we know now as input devices. There's also the issue of what users are accustomed too. A lot of my friends with PC's are frustrated with the fact that Mac laptops don't have a right click but Mac users are often frustrated with the PC's lack of multitouch and the two-finger tap for right click. So different designs may not be better than the other in any measurable way but will still be preferred by one group over another.
I was really surprised that multitouch has been around for so long when it seems as though it's only recently that multitouch has become a part of our everyday vocabulary. It's really interesting that the keyboard is considered multitouch since we've always been accustomed to the idea on a touchscreen.
Anthony Puccinelli 12:28, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
These articles got me thinking more about how integral the strong relationship between user input and your program's output is (a simple notion, but nonetheless a VERY important one). It also got me thinking about how long it takes from conception of a technology to the point when it's refined enough to be "unleashed" into the market, sometimes years. This highlights the fact that innovation is not something that often happens overnight, it takes careful planning, research, and effort over a long period of time (not as inspiring a story when you're marketing a product, but true). I was also fascinated with the aspects of touch-screen technology that I'm not familiar with yet, like touch-screens that sense what angle your finger is at when touching. The author also brings up a good point when he talks about how dependent touch-screens are on the users ability to see. It is quite frustrating, for example, trying to type on a touch-screen because you CANNOT touch-type, and typing by the tactile feel of keys is by far faster than typing by sight.
Yue Chang Hu 12:32, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
The chapters from Ken Hinckley's book,"Input Technologies and Techniques is interesting because it shows and explain number of input devices and tells the importances of how it relates to good designing. For an example, the mice is really good input devices designed specifically for the user to use the hand and it stays in the market for over 40 years because the design is fits the need of the user well. The Second article surpised me by showing that how much more the touch-sensing designing take into accounts other than contact and position. I never though that designing a good touch-screen would also need to take in an account of so many things such as Degree of touch, pressure sensitivity, angle of approach, force vectors, sizes, singer finger versus multi finger and alot more etc...
James Butkovic 12:33, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
1) This area is talked about from the perspective of interaction: the user gives input and the device responds. Like most things in UI, the correct approach is user-centered. Input devices have a number of defining properties that influence its use and usefulness. This article gives a decent general overview of inputt technologies.
2) Multitouch has been researched since 1984. This article is on the topic of that history. I really like how this is expressed: "Everything is best for something and worse for something else.". It's especially relevant in designing for the web (I want a sticky bottom bar. I'm not really sure what purpose it serves, but it looks awesome!). The article goes on to talk what separates touch interfaces from each other.
Edmundo 12:34, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
After reading the first article it is hard not to think of all the intricacies that are involved in user input devices. I found it especially interesting to consider bi-manual imput devices because they seem almost non-existent but at the same time they make a lot of sense. Also, I never had so much respect for a mouse, the article makes it seem like such a practical solution. I was also suprised with the number of problems/restrictions that come into play when using touch screens and pens.
Arthur Huang 12:38, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
I find myself amazed at how much thought goes into the input devices that we take for granted. I was surprised that touchscreen technology was invented so long before it became the norm (iphones, touchscreen GPS, etc..). When designing innovative input devices, it is important to consider both the benefits and the limitations of the device that we are designing; something really cool and useful could be unintuitive to the users and instead backfire. Apple is very good at making sleek input devices like the touchscreen on the ipad and iphone, the touchpad on macbook pros, and the "magic mouse." Granted, not all of them have been tremendous successes, but they have refined the technology such that most of them are very popular, even if the user is not used to the design.
Robin Liu 12:45, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
The multitouch systems discussed in Bill Buxton’s article, particularly Myron Krueger’s device, were very interesting. It shows that the work for the gestures and multitouch systems have been available for over 20 years since Apple popularized it with their mobile devices. This shows the importance of good design from Apple’s perspective to transform this technology into a commercially viable product, and it also shows the length of time that technology needs before it can be commercially successful. There were plenty of devices such as the Flip Keyboard and the Active Desk that had similar multitouch capabilities compared with the iPhone, but the compatibility of the technology with the user’s needs were not present. The first article provided a great overview of the variables of input devices that designers and users interact with. Particularly, the description of the distinction between the states of a mouse compared to the states of a pen were informative, as it shows that the metaphors and functionality of a particular device is not just a function of the visual interface, but also a function of the physical input device.
Kyle Gorlick 12:47, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
It's interesting to think about "the long-nose of innovation". I never knew that multi-touch interfaces were around for so long. This makes me wonder how you can be sure about the innovations you are making, because sometimes it may not test that well with users, even though if they just had a different perception they would love it. I could see an innovation in one context being unsuccessful, and then because of that not being applied in another context even though it is best suited for that context.
Alexander Wong 20:28, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
The first reading had a nice way of breaking down and categorizing devices. After reading it, I now understand why I had such a tough time learning to use a Waccom pen tablet my friend bought me as a gift. Prior to the Waccom, I had mainly used mice or the trackpad on my laptop. Both these devices are relative inputs, whereas the pen tablet is absolute. In addition to that, the dimensions of the tablet were not 1:1 with my screen size. When I would try to manipulate the pointer, I found it very difficult to judge the correct placement on the tablet even though the mapping was absolute. The corners or center of the tablet would correspond nicely to the center or corners of the screen, but areas in the between were inexact. Furthermore, the table itself had a border around the track sensing area and the surround. This made it very hard to tell the position of my pen even from the corners of the screen without looking at my hand. The last factor that kept me from using the tablet was the lack of buttons. The pen itself had a tip, a secondary button, and an eraser. The tablet had 4 additional buttons. My mouse currently has 3 buttons and a ball for scrolling, all of which are easily pressed without moving my hand. To utilize the buttons on the pen, you have to shift you hand or grip it awkwardly. To use the buttons on the tablet, I would have to take my hand off the keyboard. The tablet itself did not have enough buttons to replace the keyboard, so I found myself switching between 3 input devices instead of my original two. I might have been able to ignore the buttons on the table, but because of the size of the tablet, it was impossible to access the buttons on my keyboard because the keyboard was displaced by the additional room the tablet took up.
Chao Liu 23:19, 22 September 2010 (PDT)
for direct device is a good idea that we can have more intuitive way to control the devices,but also it brings some problems such as no good or apporpately feed back. A good device may change the way of people how to input the date and also give let people to avoid some mistakes. The touch screen is a good example that it already be a common way for people to input data. But also, new devices is combine with learning, which means you have to abadon the old way of input, such as the "ball" of the mouse or some other old input devices. People may not be femiliar with those new technology especially for old people, for example, my mother even don't know how to use mouse now...only can type words to me. I know it's a kind of extremly condition, still, new things take place with the old one always bring some new issues. We should be careful that, technology is served for people, not people jsut tired to learn new technology.
