skip to main content
10.1145/3267782.3267796acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagessuiConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Thumb-In-Motion: Evaluating Thumb-to-Ring Microgestures for Athletic Activity

Published: 13 October 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Spatial User Interfaces, such as wearable fitness trackers are widely used to monitor and improve athletic performance. However, most fitness tracker interfaces require bimanual interactions, which significantly impacts the user's gait and pace. This paper evaluated a one-handed thumb-to-ring gesture interface to quickly access information without interfering with physical activity, such as running. By a pilot study, the most minimal gesture set was selected, particularly those that could be executed reflexively to minimize distraction and cognitive load. The evaluation revealed that among the selected gestures, the tap, swipe-down, and swipe-left were the most 'easy to use'. Interestingly, motion does not have a significant effect on the ease of use or on the execution time. However, interacting in motion was subjectively rated as more demanding. Finally, the gesture set was evaluated in real-world applications, while the user performed a running exercise and simultaneously controlled a lap timer, a distance counter, and a music player.

Supplementary Material

MP4 File (p150-boldu.mp4)

References

[1]
Shaikh Shawon Arefin Shimon, Courtney Lutton, Zichun Xu, Sarah Morrison-Smith, Christina Boucher, and Jaime Ruiz. 2016. Exploring non-touchscreen gestures for smartwatches. In Proc. of CHI'16. ACM, 3822--3833.
[2]
AthleteIQ. 2016. A Survey With 763 Athletes About Their Wearable Fitness Devices. http://www.sporttechie.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Wearable-Device-Survey-Results-2.pdf.
[3]
Saskia Bakker, Elise van den Hoven, and Berry Eggen. 2015. Peripheral interaction: characteristics and considerations. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 19, 1 (2015), 239--254.
[4]
Roger Boldu, Alexandru Dancu, Denys J.C. Matthies, Thisum Buddhika, Shamane Siriwardhana, and Suranga Nanayakkara. 2018. FingerReader2.0: Designing and Evaluating a Wearable Finger-Worn Camera to Assist People with Visual Impairments while Shopping. In Proc. of IMWUT'18. ACM, 94.
[5]
Bragi. 2014. Wireless earbuds and fitness tracker. https://www.bragi.com.
[6]
John Brooke et al. 1996. SUS - A quick and dirty usability scale. Journal of Usability evaluation in industry 189, 194 (1996), 4--7.
[7]
Edwin Chan, Teddy Seyed, Wolfgang Stuerzlinger, Xing-Dong Yang, and Frank Maurer. 2016. User elicitation on single-hand microgestures. In Proc. of CHI '16. ACM, 3403--3414.
[8]
Liwei Chan, Yi-Ling Chen, Chi-Hao Hsieh, Rong-Hao Liang, and Bing-Yu Chen. 2015. Cyclopsring: Enabling whole-hand and context-aware interactions through a fisheye ring. In Proc. of UIST'15. ACM, 549--556.
[9]
Liwei Chan, Rong-Hao Liang, Ming-Chang Tsai, Kai-Yin Cheng, Chao-Huai Su, Mike Y Chen, Wen-Huang Cheng, and Bing-Yu Chen. 2013. FingerPad: private and subtle interaction using fingertips. In Proc. of UIST'13. ACM, 255--260.
[10]
Artem Dementyev and Joseph A. Paradiso. 2014. WristFlex: Low-power Gesture Input with Wrist-worn Pressure Sensors. In Proc. of UIST '14. ACM, 161--166.
[11]
Innovative Devices. 2013. Mycestro, Conduct your world. http://www.mycestro.com/.
[12]
Barrett Ens, Aaron Quigley, Hui-Shyong Yeo, Pourang Irani, Thammathip Piumsomboon, and Mark Billinghurst. 2018. Counterpoint: Exploring Mixed-Scale Gesture Interaction for AR Applications. In EA CHI'18. ACM, LBW120.
[13]
Masaaki Fukumoto and Yasuhito Suenaga. 1994. FingeRing: a full-time wearable interface. In Prof of CHI'94. ACM, 81--82.
[14]
Sarthak Ghosh, Hyeong Cheol Kim, Yang Cao, Arne Wessels, Simon T Perrault, and Shengdong Zhao. 2016. Ringteraction: Coordinated Thumb-index Interaction Using a Ring. In EA CHI' 16. ACM, 2640--2647.
[15]
Chris Harrison and Scott E. Hudson. 2009. Abracadabra: Wireless, High-precision, and Unpowered Finger Input for Very Small Mobile Devices. In Proc. of UIST'09. ACM, 121--124.
[16]
Sandra G Hart and Lowell E Staveland. 1988. Development of NASA-TLX (Task Load Index): Results of empirical and theoretical research. Journal on Advances in Psychology 52 (1988), 139--183.
[17]
Tatsuya Horie, Tsutomu Terada, Takuya Katayama, and Masahiko Tsukamoto. 2012. A Pointing Method Using Accelerometers for Graphical User Interfaces. In Proc. of AH'12. ACM, Article 12, 8 pages.
[18]
Da-Yuan Huang, Liwei Chan, Shuo Yang, Fan Wang, Rong-Hao Liang, De-Nian Yang, Yi-Ping Hung, and Bing-Yu Chen. 2016. DigitSpace: Designing Thumb-to-Fingers Touch Interfaces for One-Handed and Eyes-Free Interactions. In Proc. of CHI' 16. ACM, 1526--1537.
[19]
Sports Illustrated. 2016. Sports tech in 2017: What's next after wrist-worn wearables and fitness trackers? https://www.si.com/edge/2016/12/27/sports-tech-2017-wearable-technology-future.
[20]
Mads Møller Jensen and Florian'Floyd' Mueller. 2014. Running with technology: Where are we heading?. In Proc. of OzCHI'14. ACM, 527--530.
[21]
Lei Jing, Zixue Cheng, Yinghui Zhou, Junbo Wang, and Tongjun Huang. 2013. Magic Ring: A Self-contained Gesture Input Device on Finger. In Proc. of MUM '13. ACM, Article 39, 4 pages.
[22]
Yuki Kanai, Makoto Oka, and Hirohiko Mori. 2009. Manipulation with Fingers in a 3-D Physical Space. In Proc. of HCII'09. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 515--523.
[23]
Hsin-Liu (Cindy) Kao, Artem Dementyev, Joseph A. Paradiso, and Chris Schmandt. 2015. NailO: Fingernails As an Input Surface. In Proc. of CHI'15. ACM, 3015--3018.
[24]
Hamed Ketabdar, Peyman Moghadam, and Mehran Roshandel. 2012. Pingu: A new miniature wearable device for ubiquitous computing environments. In Proc. of CISIS'12. IEEE, 502--506.
[25]
Wolf Kienzle and Ken Hinckley. 2014. LightRing: Always-available 2D Input on Any Surface. In Proc. of UIST'14. ACM, 157--160.
[26]
Felix Kosmalla, Frederik Wiehr, Florian Daiber, Antonio Krüger, and Markus Löchtefeld. 2016. ClimbAware: Investigating Perception and Acceptance of Wearables in Rock Climbing. In Proc. of CHI'16. ACM, 1097--1108.
[27]
Li-Chieh Kuo, Haw-Yen Chiu, Cheung-Wen Chang, Hsiu-Yun Hsu, and Yun-Nien Sun. 2009. Functional workspace for precision manipulation between thumb and fingers in normal hands. J Electromyogr Kinesiol 19, 5 (2009), 829--839.
[28]
Alan HF Lam and Wen J Li. 2002. MIDS: GUI and TUI in mid-air using MEMS Sensors. In Proc. of ICCA'02. 1218--1222.
[29]
Andrea Leganchuk, Shumin Zhai, and William Buxton. 1998. Manual and cognitive benefits of two-handed input: an experimental study. 5, 4 (1998), 326--359.
[30]
Zong-Ming Li and Jie Tang. 2007. Coordination of thumb joints during opposition. JBIOMECH 40, 3 (2007), 502--510.
[31]
LifeBEAM. 2016. Vi, The First AI Personal Trainer. http://www.getvi.com.
[32]
Christian Loclair, Sean Gustafson, and Patrick Baudisch. 2010. PinchWatch: a wearable device for one-handed microinteractions. In Proc. MobileHCI'10, Vol. 10.
[33]
Logbar. 2013. Ring ZERO. http://ringzero.logbar.jp/.
[34]
Denys J. C. Matthies. 2018. Reflexive Interaction - Extending Peripheral Interaction by Augmenting Humans. PhD Thesis. University of Rostock.
[35]
MOOV. 2014. Motivation & Guidance in Your Ear. https://moov.cc/.
[36]
Motiv. 2017. Motiv Ring. http://mymotiv.com/.
[37]
Florian'Floyd' Mueller and Matthew Muirhead. 2015. Jogging with a Quadcopter. In Proc. of CHI '15. ACM, 2023--2032.
[38]
Stina Nylander and Jakob Tholander. 2014. Designing for Movement: the Case of Sports. In Proc. of MOCO' 14. ACM, 130.
[39]
OuraHealth. 2015. OURA Ring, The Worldś First Wellness Ring. https://ouraring.com/.
[40]
Anala Pandit, Dhairya Dand, Sisil Mehta, Shashank Sabesan, and Ankit Daftery. 2009. A Simple Wearable Hand Gesture Recognition Device Using iMEMS. In SoCPaR'09. 592--597.
[41]
Misha Patel and Aisling Ann O'Kane. 2015. Contextual influences on the use and non-use of digital technology while exercising at the gym. In Proc. of CHI' 15. ACM, 2923--2932.
[42]
K.R. Prince. 1996. Finger mounted computer input device. https://www.google.com/patents/US5581484 US Patent 5,581,484.
[43]
John Rooksby, Mattias Rost, Alistair Morrison, and Matthew Chalmers Chalmers. 2014. Personal Tracking As Lived Informatics. In Proc. of CHI'14. ACM, 1163--1172.
[44]
T. Scott Saponas, Desney S. Tan, Dan Morris, Ravin Balakrishnan, Jim Turner, and James A. Landay. 2009. Enabling Always-available Input with Muscle-computer Interfaces. In Proc. of UIST'09. ACM, 167--176.
[45]
Matthias Seuter, Max Pfeiffer, Gernot Bauer, Karen Zentgraf, and Christian Kray. 2017. Running with Technology: Evaluating the Impact of Interacting with Wearable Devices on Running Movement. Proc. of IMWUT'17 1, 3 (2017), 101.
[46]
Roy Shilkrot, Jochen Huber, Jürgen Steimle, Suranga Nanayakkara, and Pattie Maes. 2015. Proc. of CSUR'15. ACM Comput. Surv. 48, 2 (Nov. 2015).
[47]
Sony. 2014. Waterproof Walkman WS610 Series. http://www.sony.com.sg/electronics/walkman/nwz-ws610-series.
[48]
SourceAudio. 2012. Hot Hand. http://www.sourceaudio.net/products/hothand/.
[49]
Elizaveta Temir, Aisling Ann O'Kane, Paul Marshall, and Ann Blandford. 2016. Running: A Flexible Situated Study. In CHI' 16 EA. ACM, 2906--2914.
[50]
Jakob Tholander and Stina Nylander. 2015. Snot, Sweat, Pain, Mud, and Snow: Performance and Experience in the Use of Sports Watches. In Proc. of CHI' 15. ACM, 2913--2922.
[51]
Hsin-Ruey Tsai, Min-Chieh Hsiu, Jui-Chun Hsiao, Lee-Ting Huang, Mike Chen, and Yi-Ping Hung. 2016. TouchRing: subtle and always-available input using a multitouch ring. In Adjunct Proc. of MobileHCI'16. ACM, 891--898.
[52]
Hsin-Ruey Tsai, Cheng-Yuan Wu, Lee-Ting Huang, and Yi-Ping Hung. 2016. ThumbRing: private interactions using one-handed thumb motion input on finger segments. In Adjunct Proc. of MobileHCI'16. ACM, 791--798.
[53]
Wareable. 2016. Best fitness trackers 2017: Fitbit, Garmin, Misfit, Withings and more. https://www.wareable.com/fitness-trackers/the-best-fitness-tracker.
[54]
Eric Whitmire, Mohit Jain, Divye Jain, Greg Nelson, Ravi Karkar, Shwetak Patel, and Mayank Goel. 2017. DigiTouch: Reconfigurable Thumb-to-Finger Input and Text Entry on Head-mounted Displays. 1, 3 (2017), 113.
[55]
Mathias Wilhelm, Daniel Krakowczyk, Frank Trollmann, and Sahin Albayrak. 2015. eRing: multiple finger gesture recognition with one ring using an electric field. In Proc. of iWOAR'15. ACM, 7.
[56]
Katrin Wolf. 2016. Microgestures - Enabling Gesture Input with Busy Hands. In Peripheral Interaction. Springer, 95--116.
[57]
Xing-Dong Yang, Tovi Grossman, Daniel Wigdor, and George Fitzmaurice. 2012. Magic Finger: Always-available Input Through Finger Instrumentation. In Proc. of UIST' 12. ACM, 147--156.
[58]
Cheng Zhang, Qiuyue Xue, Anandghan Waghmare, Ruichen Meng, Sumeet Jain, Yizeng Han, Xinyu Li, Kenneth Cunefare, Thomas Ploetz, Thad Starner, et al. 2018. FingerPing: Recognizing Fine-grained Hand Poses using Active Acoustic On-body Sensing. In Proc. of CHI'18. ACM, 437.

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Ring-a-Pose: A Ring for Continuous Hand Pose TrackingProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/36997418:4(1-30)Online publication date: 21-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Understanding Gesture and Microgesture Inputs for Augmented Reality MapsProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661630(409-423)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
  • (2024)UI Mobility Control in XR: Switching UI Positionings between Static, Dynamic, and Self EntitiesProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642220(1-12)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. Thumb-In-Motion: Evaluating Thumb-to-Ring Microgestures for Athletic Activity

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    SUI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction
    October 2018
    203 pages
    ISBN:9781450357081
    DOI:10.1145/3267782
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 13 October 2018

    Permissions

    Request permissions for this article.

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. Applicability Study
    2. Athletic Activities
    3. Interaction in Motion
    4. Ring Interaction
    5. Running
    6. Spatial Interaction
    7. Thumb-finger gestures

    Qualifiers

    • Research-article
    • Research
    • Refereed limited

    Conference

    SUI '18
    SUI '18: Symposium on Spatial User Interaction
    October 13 - 14, 2018
    Berlin, Germany

    Acceptance Rates

    SUI '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 19 of 61 submissions, 31%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 86 of 279 submissions, 31%

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)108
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)13
    Reflects downloads up to 15 Feb 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2024)Ring-a-Pose: A Ring for Continuous Hand Pose TrackingProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/36997418:4(1-30)Online publication date: 21-Nov-2024
    • (2024)Understanding Gesture and Microgesture Inputs for Augmented Reality MapsProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661630(409-423)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
    • (2024)UI Mobility Control in XR: Switching UI Positionings between Static, Dynamic, and Self EntitiesProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642220(1-12)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
    • (2023)Brave New GES World: A Systematic Literature Review of Gestures and Referents in Gesture Elicitation StudiesACM Computing Surveys10.1145/363645856:5(1-55)Online publication date: 7-Dec-2023
    • (2023)Drone-Driven Running: Exploring the Opportunities for Drones to Support Running Well-being through a Review of Running and Drone Interaction TechnologiesProceedings of the 11th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction10.1145/3623809.3623831(209-220)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2023
    • (2023)VibAware: Context-Aware Tap and Swipe Gestures Using Bio-Acoustic SensingProceedings of the 2023 ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction10.1145/3607822.3614544(1-12)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2023
    • (2023)SparseIMU: Computational Design of Sparse IMU Layouts for Sensing Fine-grained Finger MicrogesturesACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/356989430:3(1-40)Online publication date: 10-Jun-2023
    • (2023)EFRingProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/35694786:4(1-31)Online publication date: 11-Jan-2023
    • (2023)Representing microgestures interaction for wearable computingProceedings of the 25th International Conference on Mobile Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/3565066.3609740(1-4)Online publication date: 26-Sep-2023
    • (2023)iFAD Gestures: Understanding Users’ Gesture Input Performance with Index-Finger Augmentation DevicesProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3580928(1-17)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
    • Show More Cited By

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Figures

    Tables

    Media

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media