Graspables revisited: multi-touch vs. tangible input for tabletop displays in acquisition and manipulation tasks

  • Authors:
  • Philip Tuddenham;David Kirk;Shahram Izadi

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom;University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom;Microsoft Research Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

We present an experimental comparison of multi-touch and tangible user interfaces for basic interface actions. Twelve participants completed manipulation and acquisition tasks on an interactive surface in each of three conditions: tangible user interface; multi-touch; and mouse and puck. We found that interface control objects in the tangible condition were easiest to acquire and, once acquired, were easier/more accurate to manipulate. Further qualitative analysis suggested that in the evaluated tasks tangibles offer greater adaptability of control and specifically highlighted a problem of exit error that can undermine fine-grained control in multi-touch interactions. We discuss the implications of these findings for interface design.