References: Multitoe: High-Precision Interaction with Back-Projected Floors Based on High-Resolution Multi-Touch Input by Thomas Augsten, Konstantin Kaefer, Rene Meusel, Caroline Fetzer, Dorian Kanitz, Thomas Stoff, Torsten Becker, Christian Holz, and Patrick Baudisch. Published in UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology.
Author Bios:
Thomas Augsten and Konstantin Kaefer are currently working towards a Masters degree in IT Systems at the University of Potsdamn in Germany. Christian Holz is a PhD student in HCI, also at the University of Potsdamn.
Patrick Baudisch is a professor in Computer Science at the Hasso Plattner Institute, and Rene Meusel, Caroline Fetzer, Dorian Kanitz, Thomas Stoff, and Torsten Becker are all students at the Hasso Plattner Institute.
Summary
Hypothesis
Current touchscreen interfaces and devices are limited in size and, therefore, in content. The authors believe that a solution lies in creating an interface with a larger surface area and using feet as the interaction agents.
Methods
The first part of the study was designed to determine how users interact with the floor and the best method for distinguishing between intentional user action and regular walking or standing. The participants were told to activate "buttons" and their methods and techniques were observed and recorded. The activation techniques were also applied to the idea of invoking a menu. The next user study was to understand the idea of stepping and how users could select controls. Participants stepped onto a floor with a honeycomb grid and asked to state which honeycomb 'buttons' should be depressed based on their foot position. The third part of the study was to determine how users would perceive a "hotspot" of limited area. Participants were asked to placed their foot onto the crosshairs such that the foot's hotspot was located directly on target. Each participant had four different conditions on what area of the foot should act as the hot spot: "free choice", the ball of the heel, the tip of the shoe, and the big toe. The last user study was designed to determine the lower bound on the size of object that a user can interact with. Participants had to type out a few words using their feet on various keyboard set-ups.
Results
For the first part of the study, the authors found that even though there were a broad variety of techniques employed by the participants, the four most useful strategies for activating a button were tapping. stomping, jumping, and double tapping. The authors determined that jumping was the most easily recognized method for invoking a menu. For the second part of the study, they found that 18 of the 20 users felt that the entire area under the shoe, including the arch, should be included in the selection. Only two users felt that the arch should be excluded. Results varied when considering the cells around the outline of the shoe. For the third part of the study the researchers found that there was substantial disagreement between where users perceived the hot spot should be in the free choice condition. In the final study they found, as expected, that error rate increases with decreasing button sizes.
Contents
This paper focuses on the research and development of an intuitive interaction with touch based technology through people's feet. It explores some of the particular points of interaction, such as how a user thinks they should be able to "point and click" and where the interface has parallels in current touch screen technologies. It also experiments with how users move and how they perceive their own feet.
Discussion
I believe that the authors managed to achieve the goals outlined, as far as researching people's interactions with their feet and applying it to touch technology. I personally found it very fascinating, but I'm afraid it won't be applicable in much except for gaming. I don't see that this type of interaction provides any sort of gain in productivity or effective communication. However, I do think that it could be applied to some extremely interesting games and even exercise applications. Perhaps there would be some market in rehabilitation areas, but it seems like most of the value would come from entertainment.
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