T-Bars: towards tactile user interfaces for mobile touchscreens

Hall, M., Hoggan, E. and Brewster, S.A. (2008) T-Bars: towards tactile user interfaces for mobile touchscreens. In: MobileHCI '08 Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services. ACM Press: New York, NY, USA, pp. 411-414. ISBN 9781595939524 (doi: 10.1145/1409240.1409301)

Abstract

Mobile device user interface elements tend to be based on desktop widgets that were not originally intended for small screen finger-based interfaces. Mobile usage scenarios afford many completely different interactions, so should be designed accordingly. This paper presents a new type of widget, the T-Bar, designed specifically for finger-based touchscreen interfaces using tactile feedback. Using the tactile feedback for orientation, the user's fingertip is guided along the T-Bar until an item is successfully selected. This paper offers observations on our finger-based touchscreen widget and two applications of the T-Bar widget. Both, File-o-Feel and Touch 'n' Twist are multi-touch information browsing applications that deviate from traditional desktop GUI paradigms and are tailored for fingertip input where all interaction takes place through the use of T-Bars; eliminating the need for any other widgets.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Brewster, Professor Stephen and Hall, Dr Malcolm and Hoggan, Miss Eve
• Authors: Hall, M., Hoggan, E., and Brewster, S.A.
• Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• Publisher: ACM Press
• ISBN: 9781595939524