This report presents findings from a joint study carried out by the Museum of Science, Boston Research and Evaluation Department (MOS) and Art Beyond Sight (ABS, formerly Art Education for the Blind) with museum visitors who are blind or have low vision. The purpose of this study was to gather information that can inform the development of pilot museum programs that meet the needs and interests of visitors who are blind or have low vision and to provide professional development for museum professionals. Focus groups were used as the primary data collection method, as they enable idea sharing
Finger-based touch input has become a major interaction modality for mobile user interfaces. However, due to the low precision of finger input, small user interface components are often difficult to acquire and operate on a mobile device. It is even harder when the user is on the go and unable to pay close attention to the interface. In this paper, we present Gesture Avatar, a novel interaction technique that allows users to operate existing arbitrary user interfaces using gestures. It leverages the visibility of graphical user interfaces and the casual interaction of gestures. Gesture Avatar
This paper explores the interactive possibilities enabled when the barrel of a digital pen is augmented with a multi-touch sensor. We present a novel multi-touch pen (MTPen) prototype and discuss its alternate uses beyond those of a standard stylus, such as allowing new touch gestures to be performed using the index finger or thumb and detecting how users grip the device as a mechanism for mode switch-ing. We also discuss the hardware and software implemen-tation challenges in realizing our prototype, and showcase how one can combine different grips (tripod, relaxed tripod, sketch, wrap) and
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jim SpadacciniHyunyoung SongHrvoje BenkoFrancois GuimbretiereShahram IzadiXiang CaoKen Hinckley
In this paper we describe two projects that utilize reality-based interaction to advance collaborative scientific inquiry and discovery. We discuss the relation between reality-based and embodied interaction, and present findings from an experimental study that illustrate benefits of reality-based tabletop interaction for collaborative inquiry-based learning.
New mobile devices with large multi-touch displays, such as the iPad, have brought revolutionary changes to ways users interact with computers. Instead of traditional input devices such as keyboards, touchpads and mice, multi-touch gestures are used as the primary means of interacting with mobile devices. Surprisingly, body-motion gestures are evolving to become a new, natural, and effective way for game players to interact with game consoles in a very similar fashion: in Kinect for Xbox 360, a controller-free gaming experience is made possible by using body-motion gestures to play games.
Direct-touch interaction on mobile phones revolves around screens that compete for visual attention with users‟ real-world tasks and activities. This paper investigates the impact of these situational impairments on touch-screen interaction. We probe several design factors for touch-screen gestures, under various levels of environmental demands on attention, in comparison to the status-quo approach of soft buttons. We find that in the presence of environmental distractions, ges-tures can offer significant performance gains and reduced attentional load, while performing as well as soft buttons
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Andrew BragdonEugene NelsonYang LiKen Hinckley
Recent advances in touch screen technology have increased the prevalence of touch screens and have prompted a wave of new touch screen-based devices. However, touch screens are still largely inaccessible to blind users, who must adopt error-prone compensatory strategies to use them or find accessible alternatives. This inaccessibility is due to interaction techniques that require the user to visually locate objects on the screen. To address this problem, we introduce Slide Rule, a set of audiobased multi-touch interaction techniques that enable blind users to access touch screen applications
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jim SpadacciniJeffrey BighamJacob Wobbrock
The NMC Horizon Report: 2011 Museum Edition, is a coproduction with the Marcus Institute for Digital Education in the Arts (MIDEA), and examines emerging technologies for their potential impact on and use in education and interpretation within the museum environment. The international composition of the advisory board reflects the care with which a global perspective for the report was assembled. While there are many local factors affecting the adoption and use of emerging technologies in museums, there are also issues that transcend regional boundaries and questions we all face. It was with
Many tasks in graphical user interfaces require users to interact with elements at various levels of precision. We present FingerGlass, a bimanual technique designed to improve the precision of graphical tasks on multitouch screens. It enables users to quickly navigate to different locations and across multiple scales of a scene using a single hand. The other hand can simultaneously interact with objects in the scene. Unlike traditional pan-zoom interfaces, FingerGlass retains contextual information during the interaction. We evaluated our technique in the context of precise object selection
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Dominik K¨aserManeesh AgrawalaMark Pauly
Modern smartphones contain sophisticated sensors to monitor three-dimensional movement of the device. These sensors permit devices to recognize motion gestures— deliberate movements of the device by end-users to invoke commands. However, little is known about best-practices in motion gesture design for the mobile computing paradigm. To address this issue, we present the results of a guessability study that elicits end-user motion gestures to invoke commands on a smartphone device. We demonstrate that consensus exists among our participants on parameters of movement and on mappings of motion
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Jim SpadacciniJaime RuizYang LiEdward Lank
This paper was prepared for the symposium, "Learning Science in Out-of-School Time: Research Directions," presented at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans. The authors discuss research efforts related to the nature of afterschool science offerings in publicly funded afterschool programs for elementary school students in California and the sources of support for science programming and afterschool staff development. Findings from the Afterschool Science Network (ASN) are outlined.
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TEAM MEMBERS:
Barbara MeansAnn HouseCarlin Llorente