BiTouch and BiPad: Designing Bimanual Interaction for Hand-held Tablets

International audienceDespite the demonstrated benefits of bimanual interaction, most tablets use just one hand for interaction, to free the other for support. In a preliminary study, we identified five holds that permit simultaneous support and interaction, and noted that users frequently change position to combat fatigue. We then designed the BiTouch design space, which introduces a support function in the kinematic chain model for interacting with hand-held tablets, and developed BiPad, a toolkit for creating bimanual tablet interaction with the thumb or the fingers of the supporting hand. We ran a controlled experiment to explore how tablet orientation and hand position affect three novel techniques: bimanual taps, gestures and chords. Bimanual taps outperformed our one-handed control condition in both landscape and portrait orientations; bimanual chords and gestures in portrait mode only; and thumbs outperformed fingers, but were more tiring and less stable. Together, BiTouch and BiPad offer new opportunities for designing bimanual interaction on hand-held tablets

Context matters: Evaluating Interaction Techniques with the CIS Model

International audienceThis article introduces the Complexity of Interaction Sequences model (CIS). CIS describes the structure of interaction techniques and the SimCIS simulator uses these descriptions to predict their performance in the context of an interaction sequence. The model defines the complexity of an interaction technique as a measure of its effectiveness within a given context. We tested CIS to compare three interaction techniques: fixed unimanual palettes, fixed bimanual palettes and toolglasses. The model predicts that the complexity of both palettes depends on interaction sequences, while toolglasses are less context-dependent. CIS also predicts that fixed bimanual palettes outperform the other two techniques. Predictions were tested empirically with a controlled experiment and confirmed the hypotheses. We argue that, in order to be generalizable, experimental comparisons of interaction techniques should include the concept of context sensitivity. CIS is a step in this direction as it helps predict the performance of interaction techniques according to the context of use

Mojiboard:Generating parametric emojis with gesture keyboards

Inserting emojis 1 can be cumbersome when users must swap through panels. From our survey, we learned that users often use a series of consecutive emojis to convey rich, nuanced non-verbal expressions such as emphasis, change of expressions, or micro stories. We introduce MojiBoard, an emoji entry technique that enables users to generate dynamic parametric emojis from a gesture keyboard. With MojiBoard, users can switch seamlessly between typing and parameterizing emojis

Where art meets technology:Integrating tangible and intelligent tools in creative processes

Art and design are essential aspects of our culture and how we interact with the world. Artists and designers use a wide selection of tools, whose impact is rapidly growing with the progression of digital technologies. This change has opened up new opportunities for the CHI community to build creative supportive tools. The digital switch has come with many benefits such as lowering barriers, mobile work environments and mass production for distribution of work. Along with these benefits we also see challenges for art and design work and its future perception in society. As technology takes a more significant role in supporting art and design what will this mean for the individual artist or designer? The focus of this workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners to explore what the future of digital art and design will hold. The exploration will centre around synthesizing key challenges and questions, along with ideas for future interaction technologies that consider mobile and tangible aspects of digital art

How spiking neurons give rise to a temporal-feature map

A temporal-feature map is a topographic neuronal representation of temporal attributes of phenomena or objects that occur in the outside world. We explain the evolution of such maps by means of a spike-based Hebbian learning rule in conjunction with a presynaptically unspecific contribution in that, if a synapse changes, then all other synapses connected to the same axon change by a small fraction as well. The learning equation is solved for the case of an array of Poisson neurons. We discuss the evolution of a temporal-feature map and the synchronization of the single cells’ synaptic structures, in dependence upon the strength of presynaptic unspecific learning. We also give an upper bound for the magnitude of the presynaptic interaction by estimating its impact on the noise level of synaptic growth. Finally, we compare the results with those obtained from a learning equation for nonlinear neurons and show that synaptic structure formation may profit from the nonlinearity

Is the writing on the wall for tabletops?

We describe an ethnographic study that explores how low tech and new tech surfaces support participation and collaboration during a workshop breakout session. The low tech surfaces were post-it notes and large sheets of paper. The new tech surfaces were writeable walls and a multi-touch tabletop. Four groups used the different surfaces during three phases: i) brief presentation of position papers and discussion of themes, ii) the creation of a group presentation and iii) a report back session. Participation and collaboration varied depending on the physical, technological and social factors at play when using the different surfaces. We discuss why this is the case, noting how new shareable surfaces may need to be constrained to invite participation in ways that are simply taken for granted because of their familiarity when using low tech materials

Looking forward through the past: identification of 50 priority research questions in palaeoecology

1. Priority question exercises are becoming an increasingly common tool to frame future agendas in conservation and ecological science. They are an effective way to identify research foci that advance the field and that also have high policy and conservation relevance. 2. To date, there has been no coherent synthesis of key questions and priority research areas for palaeoecology, which combines biological, geochemical and molecular techniques in order to reconstruct past ecological and environmental systems on time-scales from decades to millions of years. 3. We adapted a well-established methodology to identify 50 priority research questions in palaeoecology. Using a set of criteria designed to identify realistic and achievable research goals, we selected questions from a pool submitted by the international palaeoecology research community and relevant policy practitioners. 4. The integration of online participation, both before and during the workshop, increased international engagement in question selection. 5. The questions selected are structured around six themes: human–environment interactions in the Anthropocene; biodiversity, conservation and novel ecosystems; biodiversity over long time-scales; ecosystem processes and biogeochemical cycling; comparing, combining and synthesizing information from multiple records; and new developments in palaeoecology. 6. Future opportunities in palaeoecology are related to improved incorporation of uncertainty into reconstructions, an enhanced understanding of ecological and evolutionary dynamics and processes and the continued application of long-term data for better-informed landscape management