Fat Thumb Interaction Model Developed

 Interfaces

A University of Calgary research team proposes that the fatness of your thumb can be used for new user interaction possibilities on your smart phone and other touch devices. The Fat Thumb interaction technique uses the thumb’s contact size as a form of simulated pressure that adds a degree of freedom, which can be used, for example, to integrate panning and zooming into interactions on an iPhone.

Anew study published by Saul Greenberg's lab at the University of Calgary proposes that the fatness of your thumb can be used for new user interaction possibilities on your smart phone and other touch devices like the Kindle Fire.

On modern mobile devices, users can use a rich set of multi-finger interactions that combine modes into a single fluid act, for example, one finger for panning blending into a two-finger pinch gesture for zooming. Touch gestures like this typically require the use of both hands: one holding the device while the other is interacting.

While on the go, however, only one hand may be available to both hold the device and interact with it. This mostly limits interaction to a single-touch (i.e., the thumb), forcing users to switch between input modes explicitly.

The research postulates the Fat Thumb interaction technique, which uses the thumb’s contact size as a form of simulated pressure. This adds a degree of freedom, which can be used, for example, to integrate panning and zooming into a single interaction.

Performing multi-touch actions on a device with just one hand requires awkward hand postures (a); the Fat Thumb technique allows fluent single-handed mobile interaction through contact size; e.g., panning (b) and zooming (c) a map.  Image Source: University of Calgary

In the Fat Thumb model, contact size determines the mode (i.e., panning with a small size, zooming with a large one), while thumb movement performs the selected mode.

There are many nuances of the Fat Thumb based on the thumb’s limited operational range and motor skills when that hand holds the device. The researchers compared Fat Thumb to three alternative techniques, where people had to precisely pan and zoom to a predefined region on a map and found that the Fat Thumb technique compared well to existing techniques.

According to Sebastian Boring, a researcher on the team, “I think the general opinion (from users) is to say to Apple please add it, they want to have it,” he said. “I’m still hoping Apple puts it into IOS 6 when it comes out this year.”







SOURCE  University of Calgary

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