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ForceRay: Extending Thumb Reach via Force Input Stabilizes Device Grip for Mobile Touch Input

Published: 02 May 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Smartphones are used predominantly one-handed, using the thumb for input. Many smartphones, however, have grown beyond 5". Users cannot tap everywhere on these screens without destabilizing their grip. ForceRay (FR) lets users aim at an out-of-reach target by applying a force touch at a comfortable thumb location, casting a virtual ray towards the target. Varying pressure moves a cursor along the ray. When reaching the target, quickly lifting the thumb selects it. In a first study, FR was 195 ms slower and had a 3% higher selection error than the best existing technique, BezelCursor (BC), but FR caused significantly less device movement than all other techniques, letting users maintain a steady grip and removing their concerns about device drops. A second study showed that an hour of training speeds up both BC and FR, and that both are equally fast for targets at the screen border.

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  1. ForceRay: Extending Thumb Reach via Force Input Stabilizes Device Grip for Mobile Touch Input

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '19: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    May 2019
    9077 pages
    ISBN:9781450359702
    DOI:10.1145/3290605
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    Published: 02 May 2019

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    Author Tags

    1. force
    2. mobile
    3. one-handed
    4. pressure
    5. reachability
    6. touch

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    • EFRE

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    • (2024)Impact of Fingernails Length on Mobile Tactile InteractionProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642037(1-21)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
    • (2024)Perceived User Reachability in Mobile UIs Using Data Analytics and Machine LearningInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2024.232719941:4(2703-2726)Online publication date: 25-Mar-2024
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    • (2022)TetraForce: A Magnetic-Based Interface Enabling Pressure Force and Shear Force Input Applied to Front and Back of a SmartphoneProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35677176:ISS(185-206)Online publication date: 14-Nov-2022
    • (2022)One-handed Input for Mobile Devices via Motion Matching and Orbits ControlsProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/35346246:2(1-24)Online publication date: 7-Jul-2022
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    • (2021)Stepper, Swipe, Tilt, ForceProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34885455:ISS(1-21)Online publication date: 5-Nov-2021
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