Gestures and widgets: performance in text editing on multi-touch capable mobile devices

Vittorio Fuccella (1) , Poika Isokoski , Benoît Martin (2)

1 DI - Dipartimento di Informatica [Italy]
2 LCOMS - Laboratoire de Conception, Optimisation et Modélisation des Systèmes

We describe the design and evaluation of a gestural text editing technique for touchscreen devices. The gestures are drawn on top of the soft keyboard and interpreted as commands for moving the caret, performing selections, and controlling the clipboard. Our implementation is an Android service that can be used in any text editing task on Android-based devices. We conducted an experiment to compare the gestural editing technique against the widget-based technique available on a smartphone (Samsung Galaxy II with Android 2.3.5). The results show a performance benefit of 13-24% for the gestural technique depending on the font size. Subjective feedback from the participants was also positive. Because the two editing techniques use different input areas, they can co-exist on a device. This means that the gestural editing can be added on any soft keyboard without interfering with user experience for those users that choose not to use it.

Domaines: Informatique [cs]

Vittorio Fuccella, Poika Isokoski, Benoît Martin. Gestures and widgets: performance in text editing on multi-touch capable mobile devices. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Apr 2013, Paris, France. ⟨hal-01402861⟩