Design and evaluation of braced touch for touchscreen input stabilisation. Issue 122 (February 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cockburn, A.; Masson, D.; Gutwin, C.; Palanque, P.; Goguey, A.; Yung, M.; Gris, C.; Trask, C.
• Is Part Of: International journal of human-computer studies. Issue 122(2019)
• Page Start: 21
• Page End: 37
• Publication Date: 2019-02
• Subjects: Touch interaction -- Vibration -- Turbulence -- Target selection -- Aviation -- Vehicles; Human-machine systems -- Periodicals; Systems engineering -- Periodicals; Human engineering -- Periodicals; Human engineering; Human-machine systems; Systems engineering; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 004.019
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2018.08.005
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1071-5819

Abstract

Highlights: Introduces and analyses the design of Braced Touch for touch input stabilisation during vibration. Describes an empirical validation of Braced Touch using simulated aircraft turbulence. Demonstrates that during vibration, Braced Touch outperforms and is preferred to normal unstabilised touch. Abstract: Incorporating touchscreen interaction into cockpit flight systems offers several potential advantages to aircraft manufacturers, airlines, and pilots. However, vibration and turbulence are challenges to reliable interaction. We examine the design space for braced touch interaction, which allows users to mechanically stabilise selections by bracing multiple fingers on the touchscreen before completing selection. Our goal is to enable fast and accurate target selection during high levels of vibration, without impeding interaction performance when vibration is absent. Three variant methods of braced touch are evaluated, using doubletap, dwell, or a force threshold in combination with heuristic selection criteria to discriminate intentional selection from concurrent braced contacts. We carried out an experiment to test the performance of these methods in both abstract selection tasks and more realistic flight tasks. The study results confirm that bracing improves performance during vibration, and show that doubletap was the best of the tested methods.