Hands-on math: a page-based multi-touch and pen desktop for technical work and problem solving

  • Authors:
  • Robert Zeleznik;Andrew Bragdon;Ferdi Adeputra;Hsu-Sheng Ko

  • Affiliations:
  • Brown University, Providence, RI, USA;Brown University, Providence, RI, USA;Brown University, Providence, RI, USA;Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

  • Venue:
  • UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Students, scientists and engineers have to choose between the flexible, free-form input of pencil and paper and the computational power of Computer Algebra Systems (CAS) when solving mathematical problems. Hands-On Math is a multi-touch and pen-based system which attempts to unify these approaches by providing virtual paper that is enhanced to recognize mathematical notations as a means of providing in situ access to CAS functionality. Pages can be created and organized on a large pannable desktop, and mathematical expressions can be computed, graphed and manipulated using a set of uni- and bi-manual interactions which facilitate rapid exploration by eliminating tedious and error prone transcription tasks. Analysis of a qualitative pilot evaluation indicates the potential of our approach and highlights usability issues with the novel techniques used.