A-Coord Input: Coordinating Auxiliary Input Streams
for Augmenting Contextual Pen-Based Interactions
Khalad Hasan1, Xing-Dong Yang2, Andrea Bunt1, Pourang Irani1
2
Department of Computer Science,
Department of Computing Science
University of Manitoba,
University of Alberta,
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
{khalad, bunt, irani}@cs.umanitoba.ca
[email protected]
1
ABSTRACT
The human hand can naturally coordinate multiple finger
joints, and simultaneously tilt, press and roll a pen to write
or draw. For this reason, digital pens are now embedded
with auxiliary input sensors to capture these actions. Prior
research on auxiliary input channels has mainly investigated them in isolation of one another. In this work, we explore the coordinated use of two auxiliary channels, a class
of interaction techniques we refer to as a-coord input.
Through two separate experiments, we explore the design
space of a-coord input. In the first study we identify if users can successfully coordinate two auxiliary channels. We
found a strong degree of coordination between channels. In
a second experiment, we evaluate the effectiveness of acoord input in a task with multiple steps, such as multiparameter selection and manipulation. We find that a-coord
input facilitates coordination even with a complex, aforethought sequential task. Overall our results indicate that
users can control at least two auxiliary input channels in
conjunction which can facilitate a number of common tasks
can on the pen.
Author Keywords
Pen-based interaction; pen roll; pen pressure; pen tilt; dualchannel input.
ACM Classification Keywords
H.5.2 [Information Interfaces And Presentation]: User Interfaces - Interaction styles.
clude rapid access to contextual commands [22], finegrained parameter manipulation [15], and improved stimulus-response compatibility [21].
Naturally, prior work has investigated the design space for
each of these pen input channels in isolation of one another,
or when merged with pen-tip movement [3, 15-17, 21, 22].
Such research has been instrumental in identifying the fundamental properties and limitations of these auxiliary pen
input streams [3, 16, 22]. However, a new collection of
results is necessary to explore whether users can control
such channels simultaneously, beyond our abilities to do so
with highly familiar and well-practiced tasks, such as writing and drawing. If such coordination is possible, this
would expand the pen’s interactive space.
We build on these earlier results and investigate a-coord
input, the [coord]ination of at least two different [a]uxiliary
channels, such as roll and pressure, or tilt and roll, on the
pen (Figure 1). The a-coord input style raises many human
performance questions that warrant long-term research. At
this early stage we focus on the most basic questions: 1)
can users coordinate two auxiliary channels simultaneously?; 2) can multi-channel coordination extend the bandwidth (number of controllable items) that is available with
single auxiliary channels?; 3) how does coordination differ
between different auxiliary channels?; and, 4) how can acoord be applied to tasks involving continuous manipulation, such as multi-parameter selection and manipulation?
INTRODUCTION
The digital pen has evolved into a sophisticated input device, with the ability to capture a large range of natural
manipulations such as finger roll, pressure and tilt, through
auxiliary input channels. Given these capabilities in comparison to the mouse, it is not surprising that some visionaries tout the pen as becoming a highly relied upon device for
the next two decades [2]. Prior research has demonstrated
the merits in using the pen’s auxiliary channels. These inPermission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for
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Figure 1 – An illustration of (a) contextual 2D menu interaction with a-coord Tilt+Pressure; and (b) multi-parameter selection and manipulation.
We restrict this initial investigation to contextual input, i.e.,
to tasks for which pen tip movement is not required. Based
on the primary features of the pen’s auxiliary channels, we
designed two experiments to respond to the above listed
questions. Our findings show that a-coord input successful-
ly extends the control of auxiliary input from 1D to 2D. We
observe a high degree of coordination with 2D contextual
tasks, with certain a-coord input styles exhibiting more
parallelism than others. Our findings also show that we can
apply a-coord input to multi-parameter selection and manipulation, a task that involves continuous manipulation.
This latter task also has a clearer two-step delineation than
the 2D contextual menus, allowing us to test a-coord input
in a situation where one channel is designated as the leading channel and must be held steady while the user operates
the second channel. We follow these experiments with an
illustration of how carefully composing the pen’s auxiliary
inputs can provide a diverse set of interactive techniques.
Our contributions include: (1) an examination of the coordinated control of the pen’s auxiliary channels, which we
term a-coord input; (2) an extension of such input for 2D
contextual tasks; (3) evidence of good coordination with
some a-coord input styles; (4) a demonstration of a-coord
input’s effectiveness for complex tasks, such as multiparameter selection and manipulation; (5) a demonstration
of a varied sample of interactive tasks possible with the
pen’s auxiliary input channels.
RELATED WORK
Our research builds on the benefits and limitations of the
pen’s auxiliary input channels, which we review first. We
then briefly cover work in the area of parallel input control
and conclude this section with a presentation of techniques
for multi-parameter selection and manipulation, a task to
which we apply our designs of a-coord input.
Auxiliary Pen Input Channels
Numerous studies have explored the benefits and limitations of each of the pen’s auxiliary input channels [3, 13, 6,
1]. Existing findings with pen pressure, tilt-azimuth (angle
around the interaction plane), tilt-altitude (angle between
pen and plane) and roll serve as a reference for our design
of a-coord input.
Pen pressure has received considerable attention in recent
years. Ramos and Balakrishnan [14-17], as well as Ren et
al. [18] demonstrated that pen pressure is suited for numerous tasks, including menu selection and single parameter
manipulation. Studies confirm that users can comfortably
control no more than 7±1 discrete pressure levels [13, 16],
which can further be improved with proper pressure space
discretization techniques [18,16]. Additionally, users can
control a limited number of pressure levels with simultaneous pen movement, as in PressureMarks [17], or for fine
parameter manipulation, such as with Zliding [15].
The pen’s tilt has an azimuth and an altitude component
[22, 23]. Tilt Cursor [21] and the TiltMenu [22], two early
systems, respectively showed improved stimulus-response
compatibility [21] and strong compatibility with command
selection and direct manipulation [22]. The TiltMenu
worked well for fewer than 8 discrete items, and some orientations were better than others [22]. A recent study revealed a decreasing power relationship between angular
width and pointing performance when using the tilt’s altitude for selection [23].
Pen roll was shown to be useful for mode switching, document navigation, or for fluid parameter manipulation [3,
20]. Bi et al. [3] have shown that targets should be at least
10° in width and within a range of ±80°, to roll with reasonable speed and accuracy.
Prior results focusing on each channel in isolation serve as
a foundation for the work we present here. We investigate
how these channels interact when used in a coordinated
manner on the pen. With this knowledge, designers can
leverage a-coord input to create improved and fluid interactive pen techniques.
Parallel Input Control
One potential advantage to using a-coord input is the ability to coordinate the channels simultaneously. Users’ ability
to operate multiple degrees-of-freedom of input has been
explored in a number of other contexts (e.g., [1, 7, 11]).
Jacob et al. [7] characterized input devices as either integral
or separable based on whether they allowed users to manipulate multiple DOF simultaneously. Their study revealed the importance of matching the perceptual nature of
a task to that of the input device. Other work has examined
the degree of parallelism exhibited in specific settings, such
as a 3D docking task [11] and in bimanual interaction [1].
We use this body of prior work to inform our visual feedback and our methods for assessing coordination.
Parameter Selection and Manipulation Techniques
To demonstrate that a-coord input can benefit a range of
tasks, we consider its use in multi-parameter selection and
manipulation. This task is normally carried out in two distinct steps; to first select a parameter, and then to adjust its
value. Numerous techniques have been proposed for fluidly
merging multi-parameter selection and manipulation.
Flowmenu [6] is a stroke-based interface with a radial layout of regions that define various commands. Selecting a
feature takes place by stroking across a wedge-shaped
menu item. Adjusting the value of a parameter occurs by
tracing radially around the FlowMenu. The FaST sliders
interface [12] consists of using marking menus with a typical linear slider. Users first apply a mark, in the marking
menu, which then triggers a value adjusting slider. The user
then moves the slider in the desired position. An informal
user study showed that both FaST sliders and FlowMenus
effectively support parameter manipulation, but that FaST
sliders were easier for participants to learn [12].
In contrast to the above systems, with a-coord input it is
possible that experienced users could execute some degree
of parallelism, in that they could begin to manipulate the
value of a parameter while they are selecting the parameter.
PROPERTIES OF AUXILIARY CHANNELS
Key to our investigation is a comparative analysis of the
various auxiliary channels on the pen. We do not explore
all of the possible channels, such as hover [5], or capacitance based multi-touch [19] as we leave these for future
work. In our analysis we include Tilt, Roll, and Pressure.
We leave Tilt-Altitude for future work, as it shares similar
properties with Tilt-Azimuth (which we explore). We first
compare the various features of these channels and then
describe the design choices for our study of a-coord input.
Channel Properties
We distinguish each of these channels along five major
axes: range of discrete control, bi-directionality, visuomotor mappings, cyclicality and access method, introduced
below and summarized in (Table 1).
Range of discrete control. Researchers have identified the
number of discrete levels a channel can control. For pressure this number is 7±1 [13, 16], for Roll it is ±80°/10°
(smallest allowable angle) or 16 levels [3] and for TiltAzimuth, performance degrades before attaining 8 discrete
levels [22]. These ranges place an upper bound on what is
possible in terms of item selection.
Bi-directionality. Most channels provide a reasonably good
control of the input space in the forward and backward
movements. Pressure is a slight exception. Because of how
the sensors operate, pressure affords better control when
moving forward and less control returning from higher to
lower values [8]. Bi-directionality allows for better control
if the user were to overshoot a desired target.
Visuo-motor mapping. Visual feedback (i.e., a mapping
from motor to display space) is key for operating auxiliary
channel input, particularly in the absence of body-based
feedback (i.e., Pressure) [16]. Prior work has employed
radial controls for Roll and Tilt, but linear for Pressure.
Roll and Pressure can also be mapped to a linear or radial
control, respectively. On the other hand, mapping tiltazimuth to a linear control would not be a good match with
the corresponding biomechanical operation.
Cyclicality. Channel control can be either cyclical or noncyclical. For example, Roll affords cyclical control, as the
user can return to the starting point (for example, an angle
of 0°) in a single stroke without changing movement direction. In contrast, Pressure can only return to its originating
value if the pen were to be lifted.
Access method. This feature suggests how quickly a channel can access an item. This can happen sequentially, by
going through each value, or by leaping through a number
of intermediary values and going directly to an item of interest, as observed in [22]. Only Tilt-Azimuth works this
efficiently as one can directly tilt the pen (or leap) to the
orientation of interest; all the other channels require sequentially traversing through values in their range.
Design Considerations
Guided by the comparative analysis above, we restricted
our implementation of a-coord input to the following constraints and scope.
Visual Feedback
In our experiments, visual mappings were congruent with
motor movement. We map Tilt to a radial layout, but Pres-
sure and Roll are mapped to either a radial or linear layout,
to provide flexibility in our visual feedback methods.
Selection Techniques
Selection is necessary to complete the final step of an action. For Pressure, a quick release or dwell have been preferred over selection with the pen’s barrel button [16]. For
Tilt, Tian et al. [22] proposed using the altitude of tilt for
selection. For Roll, Bi et al. [3] proposed using quick release. Prior results also show that a button press with the
non-dominant hand provides good control and efficiency
[10, 16]. We use this latter method in our studies, especially since two channels are being controlled at once.
Discretizing Raw Sensory Input
Raw sensor information does not always provide an ideal
mapping of sensor values to interaction [8]. Researchers
have proposed discretizing the input for better control.
Pressure input has been discretized into distinct levels using linear [15], quadratic [4], a dynamic fisheye-based [8]
or a sigmoid [16] discretization function. We used a hysteresis function similar to that found in [16] for pressure. All
other channels employed a one-to-one mapping from raw
Tilt or Roll motor displacements to visual effecter.
Discrete Levels
Bi-Directionality
Visuo-Motor
Mapping(s)
Cyclicality
Access Method
Roll
Pressure
Tilt Azimuth
16
7±1
<8
Good
Weak
Good
Radial (P)
Linear (P)
Linear (S)
Radial (S)
Cyclical
Non-cyclical
Cyclical
Sequential
Sequential
Leaping
Radial
Table 1- A summary of key features of the pen’s auxiliary
input channels based on the literature. We used these to guide
our design choices. P, S refer to primary, secondary.
EXPERIMENT 1 – COORDINATING TWO CHANNELS
The goal of this experiment was to explore whether acoord input (a) allows users to effectively coordinate auxiliary channels conjunctively, and (b) extends the number of
controllable items with auxiliary input. Without a-coord
input, the latter goal could be realized by first applying one
channel, a selector, and then the same channel again (i.e.
Roll+selector+Roll). The selector would indicate movement into the next dimension. Alternatively one could apply one channel, a selector, and then another channel, but
this would resemble a-coord input which makes the selector redundant. Furthermore, sequential operation of two
channels does not provide the freedom to re-adjust the first
channel after it has been 'locked in’ (i.e., to proceed to the
second channel). Therefore, we used the first design as a
baseline.
Participants and Apparatus
Ten right-handed participants (2 females) between the ages
of 18 and 35 were recruited for this study. Participants had
little or no experience with digital pen input.
We used a Wacom Intuos4 tablet with an Intuos4 Art Pen.
The pen can produce pressure, tilt and roll values with a
maximum of 2048 levels of pressure, and 360° of roll and
tilt. We displayed visual feedback in full-screen mode on a
22-inch monitor with a resolution of 1680×1050 pixels.
only three input channels: pressure, roll and tilt. We
acknowledge that our results may not generalize to all
combinations of a-coord inputs, but hope to show that at
least some combinations provide clear benefits. We used
these three channels with the following parameters.
Tasks and Procedure
Pressure – We applied a hysteresis function similar to that
found in [16]. However, we excluded pressure readings that
were simply resulting from the weight of the pen as this
could confound our results. The range selected was thus
between 819 and 2048 pressure units (where 2048 was approximately 1.5N of force). The initial pressure value was
mapped to 0° as indicated in Figure 2.
We used a 2D discrete-target selection task. All first level
items were arranged in a 360° circular layout (Figure 2).
Second level items were placed in concentric rings. We
chose this mapping as it would allow us to explore a range
of a-coord techniques without introducing any confounds
related to unintuitive visuo-motor mappings. The size of
each target was determined by the number of items in the
menu (i.e., fewer items resulted in larger targets).
A target was highlighted in red. The user’s cursor was displayed in yellow. Participants were asked to select the target using either a single channel input twice or a-coord
input as quickly and accurately as possible. In the single
channel condition, participants first selected the correct
wedge using one channel (e.g. pressure or roll). Once the
participants landed on the desired wedge, they could then
move up to second dimension in the 2D menu by pressing
the CTRL key with the non-dominant hand, and then applying the same channel again. In the a-coord input condition, participants selected the wedge using one channel
(e.g. roll) and the target item using another channel (e.g.
pressure). With a-coord input, simultaneous movement
across both channels was possible. In both conditions, the
final target selection was made by pressing a hardware button (CTRL key) using the non-dominant hand. To undo any
action users could simply lift up the pen.
Prior to the experiment, participants were shown the experimental setup, and were given several practice trials in each
condition. For the a-coord input techniques, participants
were shown how channels could be engaged simultaneously (e.g., applying pressure towards the target circle and
rolling the pen towards the desired wedge, at the same
time). However, participants were not required to engage in
parallel action and could complete the task by allocating
control to one channel and then the other. Breaks were enforced at the end of each block of trials. The entire experiment lasted approximately 30 minutes.
Roll - For roll input, we defined the initial roll value of 0°
as indicated in Figure 2. According to prior work, rolling
under 10° was usually incidental and anything beyond ±90°
is suboptimal [3]. Participants could roll the pen in either
direction. Since our visual feedback consisted of a full circular layout, we employed a 1:2 mapping between the motor and visual space for roll.
Tilt – For the tilt channel, we consider only tilt in the azimuth angles, where 0° was mapped to a tilt to the East as
indicated in Figure 2.
Combining these three channels, we get three different acoord techniques: Roll + Pressure (R+P) (Figure 3.a), Tilt +
Pressure (T+P) (Figure 3.b) and, Tilt + Roll (T+R) (Figure
3.c), where the first channel moves along the first dimension (radially) and the second channel controls the cursor in
the second dimension (linearly). We selected these visuomotor mappings based on prior work (as described in the
section “Properties of Auxiliary Channels”).We included
two baseline single-channel techniques: Pressure + Pressure (P+P) and Roll + Roll (R+R). Tilt + Tilt requires a
different visual mapping, since tilt works best with radial
feedback, which we did not want to restrict ourselves to.
Therefore, we excluded Tilt + Tilt to avoid introducing
potential confounds.
Figure 3 – Three a-coord techniques we evaluated.
Roll+Pressure (R+P); Tilt+Pressure (T+P); Tilt+Roll (T+R).
Figure 2 – Visual feedback for 4 × 4 (left) and 8 × 8 (right)
levels. The black arrowheads indicate the target wedge.
Design
As indicated above, to avoid a combinatorial explosion of
different a-coord input styles, we restricted our study to
We placed the target at 3 distances: 25%, 50%, and 75%, of
the total input range for each channel, for both the first and
second dimensions (Figure 2).
Overall, the experiment employed a 5×2×3 within-subjects
factorial design. The independent variables were Technique: P+P, R+R, R+P, T+P and T+R; Number of Levels
per dimension (low, high, 4 and 8 levels in both dimensions
respectively); and Target Distance (25%, 50%, and 75%).
Technique was counterbalanced across participants using a
Latin square, while the other factors were presented in random order. Each trial representing a Technique × Number
of Level × Target Distance combination, was repeated 4
times by each participant.
Given that our focus is on the feasibility of a-coord input as
opposed to developing a novel 2D menu technique, we
omit comparisons to techniques such as marking menus [9].
With respect to marking menus, we also wish to focus on
contextual tasks, where pen movement is not involved.
Results
The data were analyzed using Repeated-Measures ANOVA
and Bonferroni corrections for post-hoc comparisons.
spite this, we find that a-coord is more efficient than using
a single channel alone.
As to be expected, there was a significant effect of Number
of Levels on completion time (F1, 9 = 135.2, p < 0.001), with
participants slower at 8 levels (4006 ms, s.e. 181) than at 4
levels (2661 ms, s.e. 104). This effect was generally consistent across techniques.
There was no main effect of Target Distance on completion
time (F2, 18 = 1.93, p = 0.17), however, the interaction effect
between Technique and Target Distance was significant
(F8, 72 = 6.15, p < 0.001). The nature of the interaction was
difficult to interpret; however, it appears as though the poor
performance of techniques involving pressure (P+P, R+P,
and T+P) was mainly caused by the poor performance of
those techniques when low pressure levels were required
(targets at 25%). This is consistent with the findings from
the prior work [8], showing that people have difficulty controlling pressure at its lower end.
Task Completion Time
Completion time measured the time from the target’s appearance to the time participants successfully selected it,
including errors.
The RM-ANOVA yielded a significant main effect of
Technique (F4, 36 = 46.33, p < 0.001) on completion time.
The means for each technique are displayed in Figure 4.
Post-hoc comparisons showed the 3 dual-channel techniques (T+P: 2315 ms, s.e. 182l; T+R: 2830 ms, s.e. 185;
R+P: 2841 ms, s.e. 179) were all significantly faster than
the 2 single-channel techniques (R+R: 4338 ms, s.e. 127;
P+P: 4341 ms, s.e. 231; p < 0.001). There was also a nonsignificant trend indicating that T+P was faster than R+P
(p=0.065), but there was no difference between R+P and
T+R (p = 1). The difference between the two singlechannel techniques was not significant (p = 1).
For the single-channel techniques, completion time can be
decomposed into two sequential target acquisition components: the time it takes to make a successful selection on
the first level, and the time from the end of the first task to
the end of the trial. For P+P, since pressure is unidirectional, there was an additional adjustment cost between the
two task components, where participants had to release the
pressure after the first task by lifting the pen tip, and to land
down the pen again to start the second task (Figure 4.left).
Figure 4 shows the task decomposition for each of the two
single-channel combinations. We observe that participants
require less time on the second invocation of the channel.
This goes contrary to our expectations, in that the second
invocation should take longer due to the mechanical readjustment of the finger after having invoked that channel
once. We believe that this is still likely the case, but that
users probably built muscle memory from the first phase,
given that the targets were all laid out at the same distance
in the second level. In retrospect, we created a condition
that unintentionally favoured the single channel input. De-
Figure 4 – Left: Task completion time shown by technique.
Right: Error Rate shown by technique. (Error Bars represent
±1 s.e.)
Number of Errors
An error occurred if the participant selected the wrong target. For single channels, error was recorded only if the item
on the second level was not selected properly. The trial did
not stop until the proper target was selected.
The RM-ANOVA yielded a significant main effect of
Technique (F4, 36 = 4.47, p = 0.01) on error rate. Post-hoc
analysis showed that T+R (5.4%, s.e. 0.9%) had significantly fewer errors than P+P (17.5%, s.e. 3%) (p=0.034).
There were also non-significant trends indicating that T+R
might be less error prone than R+R (11.2%, s.e. 1.9%,
p=0.067) and T+P (20.6%, s.e. 4.6%, p=0.072). There was
no significant difference between T+R and R+P (14.3%,
s.e. 3.1%, p=0.220), nor were there significant differences
between the remaining techniques (p=1).
There were significant main effects of Numbers of Levels
(F1, 9 = 35, p < 0.001) and Target Distance (F2, 18 = 1.93, p
< 0.001) on error rate. Participants made twice as many
errors with 8 levels (18.2% s.e. 1.8%) than they did with 4
levels (9.4% s.e. 1.8%). For target distances, there were
significantly more errors with targets at 25% distance
(23.1%, s.e. 3.3) than with targets at 50% distance (11.3%,
s.e. 1.2%) and 75% (7%, s.e. 1.5%) (p < 0.05). Post-hoc
analysis showed no significant difference between the 50%
and 75% distances (p = 0.1).
Finally, there was a significant Technique × Target Distance interaction effect (F8, 72 = 0.07, p < 0.05). Similar to
our results for completion time, the interaction was at least
partly due to the techniques involving pressure, where the
error rate decreased rapidly as the target distance increased.
Discussion
A-Coord Input Performance
Our results reveal several trends. For all a-coord input
styles tested, users were faster than using an auxiliary
channel twice. Based on our results across all our measures,
Tilt+Roll afforded the best overall result, with completion
times below those of the single channels, and error rates in
an acceptable range. One primary reason is that Tilt does
not require users to traverse a range of item before reaching
the target (Table 1). Additionally, Roll can control a larger
number of items than pressure, thus disadvantaging this
latter channel (Table 1). While Tilt+Pressure showed a
trend towards being the fastest technique, it also exhibited a
high error rate, making it perhaps the least desirable technique of all three a-coord styles we tested.
The fact that Tilt takes considerably less time to stabilize
than either roll or pressure is to be expected due to the nonsequential nature of acquiring items through tilt-azimuth.
Users take roughly 22% of the total task time to operate
and stabilize tilt. This corresponds to a value between 700
and 850 msecs, which matches very closely to tilt performance when operated alone, as shown in earlier work [22].
Input with the second channel, i.e. Roll or Pressure with
Tilt, takes approximately 75% of the total task time (i.e.
users seem to take the remaining 25% of total task time to
select the target with the button using the non-dominant
hand). With Roll+Pressure, we see users on average operate Roll at 50%, and Pressure at 72% of total task time.
These results indicate that users stabilized the first channel
before proceeding to the final goal. They may also suggest
that the channel with more controllable input range (Table
1), i.e. in this case Roll or Tilt, gets stabilized before the
one with less control.
Error Rates
Error rates are similar to the ranges found in earlier studies
on single channel input (see [3, 16, 22]). These range between 5% and 20%. Such errors can be minimized with
better discretization functions [8] and by using fewer number of items [22]. Other improvements can be found when
users are trained and improve with learning [8].
Extending the Number of Controllable Items
Our results show that any A-coord technique with 4×4
items has a comparable performance with other single
channel techniques. These results show that we can extend
the range of discrete items that was previously possible
with single auxiliary channels. We see that a-coord input
facilitates a factor of 2 to 3 times the possible range with
single channels. Even with a conservative extension, of up
to 4×4 items, error rates across a-coord input are within the
bounds of what was previously reported with single channels alone.
Figure 6 – Average percentage of time consumed by each
channel over the length of a trial.
We further examine the performance of the non-leading
channel (i.e. the channel which stabilized last) for the period in which both channels operate simultaneously. For example, during the period it takes Tilt to stabilize (22% of
the overall task time in Tilt+Roll or roughly 700 msecs,
represented by the red vertical bar in Figure 7) we observe
several trends. With Tilt+Roll we find that while users are
operating Tilt, the values of Roll also grow linearly and this
continues even after Tilt gets stabilized. In the case of
Tilt+Pressure and Roll+Pressure, the non-leading channel
Pressure is controlled in a log manner. This suggests that
during the period that both channels are operating, pressure
quickly ramps up and then slows down after the leading
channel’s becomes steady.
Coordination
We examine the amount of coordination facilitated by acoord input by breaking down the total completion time by
the amount of control exhibited by each individual channel
(Figure 6). We observe a few trends. First, we notice that
while users still operate both channels in conjunction, they
tend to stabilize one channel before completing the task
with the other. This result goes contrary to our initial expectation that both channels would always be operated together, instead of one leading the other. Furthermore, stabilizing one channel before the other might explain the improved efficiency and error rates we observed with certain
a-coord styles. For example, users stabilize Tilt very quickly, which may explain why combinations with this channel,
such as Tilt+Roll, worked better than other techniques.
Figure 7 – Degree of control with the non-leading channel
until the leading channel stabilizes, i.e. stops changing. The
red vertical bar represents the timestamp at which the leading
channel stabilizes. Left: with Tilt+Roll, Roll is controlled in a
linear fashion; Middle, Right: non-leading channel Pressure,
is controlled in a log manner. All R2 are above 0.9.
Overall, these observations on channel coordination suggest that users tend to operate both channels conjunctively,
within the time frame used for operating the leading channel. The conjunctive operation of a-coord input has the
potential to yield performance gains in tasks other than 2D
discrete item selection. We demonstrate how to extend this
conjunctive operation to a different task in our next study.
COORDINATING CHANNELS FOR MULTI-PARAMETER
SELECTION AND MANIPULATION
Our first study revealed that users can conjunctively coordinate two auxiliary channels. In our next study we explored this a-coord input feature through multi-parameter
selection and manipulation, a task that involves continuous
manipulation and has a more inherent two-step structure:.
The common task of multi-parameter selection and manipulation requires users to first select a desired parameter
before they can actually change its value. We adapt a-coord
input such that users concurrently choose a parameter and
manipulate it. This form of interaction would be suitable
for users who know a priori the value of the target they
wish to set a parameter at. In these situations, a-coord input
could be used to select and manipulate the value of a parameter through a single and continuous action. We note
that the pen’s auxiliary channels were designed for continuous and fluid input, such as for drawing. We therefore
harness this natural design feature but in a multi-step fashion.
One challenge in adapting a-coord input for a multiparameter selection and manipulation task is to avoid inadvertently setting values for parameters that were not selected. Figure 8 (left) shows how to adjust the value of multiple parameters, e.g. brightness or contrast of an image, with
P+R. A user can move between sliders using pressure. Only
the active slider will get highlighted, for which its value
can be altered by rolling the pen. Users can press a key to
confirm the change. With a-coord input, rolling the pen
while pressing will unintentionally change the value of all
sliders, active or inactive. To address this issue, we introduce a ghost wiper on every slider. Ghost wipers are semitransparent and work the same way as real wipers but without changing the value of the parameters. They only show
the potential change of the value. When users press the
selection key, the change takes place on the active slide,
while all other sliders remain unchanged (Figure 8 left). As
an add-on benefit, a-coord interfaces allow designers to
hide the inactive sliders to save expensive screen real estate. For example the P+R interface could consist of
stacked sliders with only the active one being visible. Similarly, the T+R interface only shows the slider associated
with the pen’s tilt angle (Figure 1).
EXPERIMENT 2 – EXPLOTING A-COORD INPUT FOR A
TWO-STEP CONTINUOUS MANIPULATION TASK
This study measures user performance of a-coord input in a
multi-parameter selection and manipulation task. Unlike
2D discrete item selection, the two sub-tasks in a multiparameter selection and manipulation task are asymmetric,
i.e. each channel plays a different role – one for discrete
item selection and the other for continuous variable manipulation. The two-step process requires users to hold the
leading channel steady while manipulating the non-leading
channel, thus testing the users' ability to exhibit this type of
control with a-coord input. An additional distinction between this task and the 2D selection is that manipulating a
continuous variable requires finer control. We use only
Roll for manipulating the continuous variable as our pilot
studies showed that Pressure did not afford sufficient bidirectional control for fine-grain input, and Tilt did not map
naturally to such a task. We thus mapped parameter selection to Pressure and Tilt. Finally, we were also interested in
knowing if a-coord input affords a comparable performance to an existing multi-parameter selection and manipulation technique. We included the FaST Slider [12] as a
baseline technique in the study. Other techniques exist (as
described earlier) but FaST sliders have shown to be easier
to learn, than for example, FlowMenus [6].
Participants and Apparatus
Twelve right-handed participants (2 females) between the
ages of 20 and 35 were recruited for this study. Participants
had little or no experience with pen-based interfaces. We
used the same apparatus as in Experiment 1.
Tasks and Procedure
For the a-coord techniques, participants were asked to select a desired slider using Pressure or Tilt, and then use
Roll to adjust the position of the wiper to a target value
shown by a vertical bar (Figure 8 left). The wiper was initially placed in the middle of the slider of 360 pixels (50.4
mm) high. Rolling the pen 1° in the counter-clockwise
moved the wiper up by 1 pixel, and vice versa, providing
360 discrete levels and ensuring sufficient smoothness and
continuity. When the wiper reached the target distance,
participants pressed the CTRL key using the non-dominant
hand to confirm a selection.
With the FaST Slider, participants first selected a desired
slider using a marking menu [9]. The slider appeared at the
position where the participants lifted the pen (Figure 8
right). They then used the pen tip to drag the wiper to the
target value, pressing the CTRL button to confirm selection. The height of the entire slider widget remained the
same for all techniques.
Figure 8 – (a) Using pressure to select a desired slider, and
using Roll to adjust the position of the wiper. (b) FaST Slider.
A trial ended when participants successfully changed the
desired parameter to the target value. Prior to the study,
participants were given practice trials to familiarize themselves with all techniques. Similar to Experiment 1, they
were shown how to engage in a-coord input in a coordinated manner, but this was not enforced in the study.
Design
The experiment employed a 3×2×2×3 within-subjects factorial design. The independent variables were Technique:
P+R, T+R, and FaST Slider; Number of Parameters: Low
(4) and High (6); Granularity: Coarse-grain, Fine-grain;
and Target Distance: Near, Mid, and Far.
T+R was always faster than P+R and FaST Sliders, but that
differences between the latter two were more nuanced. In
some conditions (e.g. coarse-grained and 4 parameters),
P+R showed a comparable performance with FaST Slider.
Number of Parameters – High was set to 6 items since results from the first study showed that pressure was hard to
control with 8 levels.
Granularity – we used wipers of 2 different sizes to adjust
the level of granularity. For the fine-grain setting, we used
a wiper of 15 × 30 pixels (4.5 × 8.4 mm), and for the
coarse-grain setting, we used a wiper of 30 × 30 pixels (8.4
× 8.4 mm).
Target Distance - we randomly placed the target within 3
intervals: Near (10%-30%), Mid (40%-60%), and Far
(70%-90%), of the total input range. For rolling, the direction of roll was randomly chosen for each of the 3 target
distances. In other words, distance Near could be randomly
interpreted to be between ±(9°-27°).
Technique - was counterbalanced across participants using
a Latin square, while the other factors were presented in a
random order. The study consisted of four blocks, each
consisting of 2 trials. There were 3 Techniques × 2 Numbers of Parameters × 2 Granularities × 3 Target Distances
× 4 Blocks × 2 Repetitions × 12 Participants = 3456 trials
in total.
Results
The data were again analyzed using Repeated-Measures
ANOVA and Bonferroni corrections for post-hoc pair-wise
comparisons. For the sake of brevity, we concentrate our
reporting on our primary factor of interest, Technique.
Task Completion Time
RM-ANOVA yielded a significant effect of Technique (F2,
22 = 23.86, p < 0.001) on task completion time. The means
for each technique are displayed in Figure 9. Post-hoc
comparisons showed that T+R (1703 ms, s.e. 91) was significantly faster than FaST Slider (2219 ms, s.e. 88) and
P+R (2339 ms, s.e. 106) (p < 0.001). The difference between FaST Slider and P+R was not significant (p = 1).
Figure 10 – The interaction effects for completion time.
Number of Errors
The RM-ANOVA yielded a significant main effect of
Technique (F2, 22 = 12.48, p < 0.001) on the number of errors (Figure 9). Post-hoc analysis showed that P+R (12.1%,
s.e. 1.7%) had significantly more errors than T+R (4.5%,
s.e. 1%) and FaST Slider (6.3%, s.e. 1.5%) (p < 0.05).
There was no significant difference on between T+R and
FaST Sliders (p = 0.82). There was, however, a significant
Technique × Target Distance interaction (F4,44 = 22.03, p <
0.001), indicating that the difference between P+R and the
other two techniques occurred mainly at Low target distances, where P+R was more error prone.
DISCUSSION
Experiment 2 Results
Results of experiment 2 show that a-coord input can be
applied to a task involving continuous manipulation and a
more distinct two-step process than the discrete item selection task studied in experiment 1. Of the techniques evaluated, combining Tilt+Roll led to the lowest completion
times and was comparable to an existing technique, FaST
Sliders, in terms of errors. We also note that holding a Tilt
value while rolling was more controllable than holding a
certain Pressure value. Although the results showed that
combining Tilt and Roll was superior to combining Pressure and Roll for a task of this nature, the latter combination can still have a comparable performance with a careful
design, e.g. few discrete items (i.e., number of parameters)
for pressure and coarse-grained control for rolling.
Utility of A-Coord Input
We summarize the primary findings from our two studies
as follows:
A-coord input provides a larger input range than what
Figure 9 - Left: Task completion times. Right: Error rates.
In addition to the above main effect, there were significant
interactions between Technique × Number of Parameters
(F2, 22 = 22.79, p < 0.001), Technique × Granularity (F2, 22
= 4.89, p = 0.01), and Technique × Target Distance (F4, 44 =
5.25, p = 0.001) (Figure 10). These effects demonstrate that
is available with single channels (up to 64 or 8×8 items
vs. 16 items, table 1);
Some a-coord styles are more efficient than combining
single channels serially;
Of the combinations studied, Tilt+Roll affords the best
a-coord control for discrete 2D target selection;
Tilt+Roll a-coord input is efficient for parameter selection and manipulation, and is a viable alternative or addition to existing techniques such as FaST sliders.
Expanding on these primary findings, our experiments
show that a-coord input is a viable input technique across
two qualitatively different tasks. Experiment 1 showed that
a-coord input can extend the bandwidth available through a
single auxiliary channel as channels are operated in conjunction. On a conservative side the bandwidth with acoord input easily extends to 16 items (4×4), with much
higher levels possible for techniques that don’t involve
Pressure. Our results also indicate that when combining
two channels, users have a tendency to stabilize one channel first - either Tilt, which is stabilized rapidly, or Roll.
This tendency fits with other research on parallel control,
which found that users will not always allocate control
equally when operating a multiple degrees-of-freedom input device, particularly when equal allocation results in a
biomechanically awkward motion [11]. However, we also
observed that while both channels are in operation, users
exhibit a high amount of parallelism. This latter result suggests that coordinating multiple auxiliary channels on the
pen is a relatively natural motion.
In experiment 2, we demonstrated that a-coord input is
applicable to a more continuous task and one with a more
distinct division of responsibilities for the channels. This
latter task characteristic adds the challenge of having to
hold the leading channel steady while operating the second
channel. Our results indicated that Tilt and Roll was particularly effective for this multi-parameter selection and manipulation task, with performance either exceeding or comparable to an alternative technique (FaST Sliders).
A loose correlation of our results to the comparative analysis of the techniques summarized in Table 1, may suggest
the following. When an auxiliary channel has a rapid access
method to discrete items, such as with Tilt, this channel
stabilizes quicker in a-coord style interaction. However, in
the process of stabilization, the channels involved are still
being coordinated conjunctively. A second observation is in
the amount of control possible and mapping of a task to a
channel. For example, Roll was relegated to continuous
parameter manipulation. This seems intuitive but also
worked well since rolling affords a high degree of control.
Application Scenarios
Single channel input on the pen has been primarily proposed for in-context interactions [22], where the user does
not need to move the pen for interaction. We feel that the acoord input enhances interactions in these types of scenarios but further facilitates input with the pen in ways that
were not easily captured with single channels alone. We
present three application scenarios: 2D menus, improved
stimulus-response compatibility, and integral actions.
2D Menus - With a-coord input, contextual menus take on a
new dimension. The technique can, increase the range and
number of items selectable and allow for 2D organization
of menu items. Tilt menus have been shown to work well
for menu selection [22], but are limited in range. In our
case, using even a conservative technique, (pressure and
tilt) we can immediately get 16 items for selection (Figure
1.a), with much larger item sets possible, such as for the
color palette (shown in Figure 11.a), with Tilt and Roll.
Beyond simply extending the number of items, a-coord
input also permits 2D menu organization, with the structure
(e.g., number of items per level) tailored to the strengths of
the specific dual-channel combination. We don’t necessarily need to constrain menus to one level before showing the
next - we can show all menu items and then allow the user
to simply move to their target in a more parallel manner.
Figure 11 - Sample applications that can benefit from a-coord
input, as per our results. (a) Tilt-Roll 2D color palette; (b)
Tilt-Roll 3D-manipulation; (c) Tilt-Roll Volumetric data navigation ; (d) Pressure-Roll dynamic CD ratio adjustment.
Extended Stimulus-Response Compatibility – A-coord input
can also enhance stimulus-response compatibility. For example, Tilt can easily be used to select a mode (i.e. 2-6
modes) before engaging in a rolling action. Examples of
combining channels in this manner include common transformations in 3D applications: we can map Tilt to axis selection, and Roll to manipulation; the latter could rotate or
scale an object along the axis selected by Tilt (Figure 11.b).
This can replace the use of small handles commonly used
for such tasks in graphics applications, which are prone to
parallax issues with the pen. Volumetric data navigation
often requires users to change the viewing angle of a virtual
camera while manipulating the camera’s depth. Tilt and
Roll can provide a smoother control, for changing the orientation of the clipping plane (Tilt) and simultaneously the
depth of the plane (Roll) (Figure 11.c).
Integral Actions - A-coord input can also support integral
actions, ones that map well to the perceptual structure of
the task [7]. For example to fine-tune rotation of an object,
Pressure can be mapped to controlling the CD ratio while
Roll rotates the object (Figure 11.d). These sub-actions
could be easily carried out simultaneously to enhance fluidity with contextual actions.
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
In this paper, we investigate the benefits of the design
space of a-coord input through two experiments, which
systematically studied several fundamental questions of
such an input style. The results of the first study show that
a-coord input can effectively improve the bandwidth of the
pen’s auxiliary channels with high efficiency and accuracy
and by operating the channels in parallel for at least some
duration of the task. These findings can be applied to a continuous two-step task.
We caution, however, that our understanding of a-coord
input is still in its infancy. Additional empirical work is
required to: (i) identify more precise usable ranges for each
channel combination; (ii) determine the generalizability of
our results across all other channel combinations; (iii) empirically verify the value of a-coord input in some of the
application scenarios we have proposed; (iv) explore acoord input for direct settings; (v) investigate the effect of
a-coord input for different visual mappings; and (vi) determine users’ qualitative responses to a-coord input in
comparison to other alternatives. Answers to some of these
pertinent questions along with our findings can make acoord input a reliable, effective and common interaction
method for pen-based interfaces.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We acknowledge NSERC for providing the funds, our
study participants and our lab mates, David McCallum and
Cary Williams for assisting with the video.
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