Abstract
Recent advances in computer design and technology have broadened the range of devices enabled for inscription and touch-based interaction and increased their adoption in collaborative work settings. Since most of the past research has focused on optimal use of individual devices, we now need to expand our understanding of how these devices are used in concert, particularly in collaborative work settings where touch and gesture facilitate communication and may interfere with the touch-based input. We conducted in situ observations of team meetings that involve the use of a tabletop computer, tablet personal computers (tablet PCs) with handwriting support, and a vertical display. The study shows how inscriptions and gestures naturally emerge around the content displayed on the devices and how important it is to maintain their spatial congruence. Furthermore, it reveals that the combination of the tablet PCs and the tabletop computer encourages the use of gestures and touch across devices as part of sense-making. While discussing the content, the users apply sequential and synchronous gestures to bind content and inscriptions across devices. Our observations of binding gestures extend the gesture taxonomies from previous studies and expand the notion of multi-touch beyond individual devices. We stipulate that designing support for touch and gestures across devices requires a holistic approach. Only through coordinated design of touch, inscription, and gesture input and consideration of broader usage scenarios, we can ensure minimal interference with naturally emerging touch and gestures and provide effective mechanism for disambiguating general user behavior from device input actions.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Andreychuk D, Ghanam Y, Maurer F (2010) Adapting existing applications to support new interaction technologies: technical and usability issues. In: Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGCHI symposium on engineering interactive computing systems (EICS ‘10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp 199–204
Bekker MM, Olson JS, Olson GM (1995) Analysis of gestures in face-to-face design teams provides guidance for how to use groupware in design. In: Proceedings of the conference on designing interactive systems, pp 157–166
Biehl JT, Baker WT, Bailey BP, Tan DS, Inkpen KM, Czerwinski M (2008) Impromptu: a new interaction framework for supporting collaboration in multiple display environments and its field evaluation for co-located software development. In: Proceeding of SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems
Cortina LJ, Zhao Q, Cobb P, McClain K (2003) Supporting students’ reasoning with inscriptions. In: Proceedings of 6th international conference of learning science, pp 124–149
Dachselt R, Buchholz R (2009) Natural throw and tilt interaction between mobile phones and distant displays. In: Proceedings of the 27th international conference extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems 2009 (CHI ‘09). ACM, pp 3253–3258
Goodwin C (2003) Pointing as situated practice. In: Kito S (ed) Pointing: where language, culture, and cognition meet. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Mahwah, NJ, pp 217–242
Ha V, Inkpen KM, Whalen T, Mandryk RL (2006) Direct intentions: the effects of input devices on collaboration around a tabletop display. In: Proceedings of the first IEEE international workshop on horizontal interactive human-computer systems, pp 177–184
Hawkey K, Kellar M, Reilly D, Whalen T, Inkpen KM (2005) The proximity factor: impact of distance on co-located collaboration. In: Proceedings of the 2005 international ACM SIGGROUP conference on supporting group work
Hardy R, Rukzio E (2008) Touch & interact: touch-based interaction of mobile phones with displays. In: Proceedings of the 10th international conference on human computer interaction with mobile devices and services, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Hinckley K, Ramos G, Guimbretiere F, Baudisch P, Smith M (2004) Stitching: pen gestures that span multiple displays. In: Proceedings of the working conference on advanced visual interfaces, Gallipoli, Italy
Hinckley K (2003) Synchronous gestures for multiple persons and computers. In: Proceedings of the 16th annual ACM symposium on user interface software and technology, pp 149–158
Izadi S, Agarwal A, Criminisi A, Winn J, Blake A, Fitzgibbon A (2007) C-Slate: exploring remote collaboration on horizontal multi-touch surfaces. Proc IEEE Tabletop 2007:3–10
Izadi S, Hodges S, Taylor S, Rosenfeld D, Villar N, Butler A, Westhues J (2008) Going beyond the display: a surface technology with an electronically switchable diffuser. Proc ACM UIST 08(269–278):2008
Seifert J, Simeone A, Schmidt D, Holleis P, Reinartz C, Wagner M, Gellersen H, Rukzio E (2012) MobiSurf: improving co-located collaboration through integrating mobile devices and interactive surfaces. In: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM international conference on interactive tabletops and surfaces (ITS ‘12). ACM, New York, NY, USA
Kendon A (1988) How gestures can become like words. In: Potyatos F (ed) Crosscultural perspectives in nonverbal communication. Hogrefe, Toronto, pp 131–141
O’Hara K, Harper R, Mentis H, Sellen A, Taylor A (2013) On the naturalness of touchless: putting the “interaction” back into NUI. ACM Trans Comput Hum Interact 20(1):1–25
Kirk D, Crabtree A, Rodden T (2005) Ways of the hands. In: Proceedings of the ninth conference on european conference on computer supported cooperative work, September 18–22, 2005, Paris, France, pp 1–21
Kray C, Nesbitt D, Dawson J, Rohs M (2010) User-defined gestures for connecting mobile phones, public displays, and tabletops. In: Proceedings of the 12th international conference on human computer interaction with mobile devices and services, Lisbon, Portugal
Lee H, Jeong H, Lee J, Yeom K, Park J (2009) Gesture-based interface for connection and control of multi-device in a tabletop display environment. In: Proceedings of the 13th international conference on human-computer interaction, pp 216–225
McNeill D (1992) Hand and mind: what gestures reveal about thought. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Microsoft Kinect. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/collaboration/focus/nui/kinect-windows.aspx
Microsoft Kinect for Xbox. http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/KINECT
Oleksik G, Milic-Frayling N, Jones R (2012) Beyond data sharing: artifact ecology of a collaborative nanophotonics research centre. In: Proceedings of CSCW ‘12. ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp 1165–1174
Olsen J, Olsen G (2004) Why distances matters. Hum Comput Interact 15:139–179
Peng C, Shen G, Zhang Y, Lu S (2009) Point&Connect: intention-based device pairing for mobile phone users. ACM/USENIX MobiSys, Kraków
Rekimoto J (1997) Pick-and-drop: a direct manipulation technique for multiple computer environments. In: Proceedings of UIST 1999, pp 31–39
Siri, Apple Corporation. http://www.apple.com/ios/siri
Shaer O, Kol G, Strait M, Fan C, Grevet C, Elfenbein S (2010) G-nome surfer: a tabletop interface for collaborative exploration of genomic data. ACM CHI 2010, Atlanta
Smalheiser NR, Torvik VI, Zhou W (2009) Arrowsmith two-node search interface: a tutorial on finding meaningful links between two disparate sets of articles in MEDLINE. Comput Methods Programs Biomed 94(2):190–197
Streeck J, Kallmeyer W (2004) Interaction by inscription. J Pragmat 33(4):465–490
Streitz NA, Geißler J, Holmer T, Konomi S, Müller-Tomfelde C, Reischl W, Rexroth P, Seitz P, Steinmetz R (1999) i-LAND: an interactive landscape for creativity and innovation. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, May 15–20, 1999, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, pp 120–127
Tabard A, Eastmond E, Mackay WE (2008) From individual to collaborative: the evolution of prism, a hybrid laboratory notebook. CSCW’08, November 8–12, 2008, San Diego, California, USA
Yatani K, Tamura K, Hiroki K, Sugimoto M, Hashizume H (2006) Toss-it: intuitive information transfer techniques for mobile devices using toss and swing actions. IEICE Trans Inf Syst 89:150–157
Wobbrock JO, Morris MR, Wilson AD (2009) User-defined gestures for surface computing. In: Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Human factors in computing systems CHI 09, pp 1083–1092
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Oleksik, G., Milic-Frayling, N. & Jones, R. Touch and gesture: mediating content display, inscriptions, and gestures across multiple devices. Pers Ubiquit Comput 18, 1243–1257 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-013-0724-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-013-0724-5