The performance of touch screen soft buttons

  • Authors:
  • Seungyon Lee;Shumin Zhai

  • Affiliations:
  • Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA;IBM Almaden Research Center, San Jose, CA, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

The introduction of a new generation of attractive touch screen-based devices raises many basic usability questions whose answers may influence future design and market direction. With a set of current mobile devices, we conducted three experiments focusing on one of the most basic interaction actions on touch screens: the operation of soft buttons. Issues investigated in this set of experiments include: a comparison of soft button and hard button performance; the impact of audio and vibrato-tactile feedback; the impact of different types of touch sensors on use, behavior, and performance; a quantitative comparison of finger and stylus operation; and an assessment of the impact of soft button sizes below the traditional 22 mm recommendation as well as below finger width.