Input Devices

Universidade de Aveiro

Departamento de Electrónica,

Telecomunicações e Informática

Human-Computer Interaction Beatriz Sousa Santos, 2016/2017

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Main Input devices

• Keyboards

• Pointing devices

– Mouse

– Touch screen

– Touch pad

– Joy stick

– Track ball, …

• Character recognizers

• Voice recognizers

• Eye trackers

• Motion and position trackers

• 3D input devices

• …

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Keyboards

• Relevant issues in UI design:

– Key layout

– Operational characteristics:

• Keyboard size

• Keyboard angle

• Hand resting area

• Key spacing

• Key activation force

• Key surface and finishing

• Key displacement

• Activation feedback

• Home row indicators

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Keyboards

• Alphanumeric

• Numeric

• Functions

• Cursors

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Keyboards

home row

indicators

Cursors

Numeric

Alphanumeric

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Keys layout

Qwerty

Dvorak

Combining both

Portuguese Keyboads

7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_keyboard_layout

Brasil

Portugal

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Percentage of work performed by each hand

(in English)

QWERTY Dvorak

http://www.dvorak-keyboard.com

QWERTY was devised to prevent jams in early typewriters.

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Ergonomic keyboards

Help avoid RSI (Repetitive Strain

Injury) WRULD (Work Related

Upper Limb Disorder) and KRP

(Keyboard Related Pain)

https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en-

us/products/keyboards/sculpt-ergonomic-desktop/

Virtual (on screen) keyboards

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Allow a user to enter characters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_keyboard

May be used for security reasons

Keyboards for specific contexts of use

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Virtual projection keyboards

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_keyboard

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/02/virtual-devices

https://wiki.ezvid.com/best-virtual-keyboards

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Chording keyboards

An early keyboard (left) and lettercodes (right)

Modern device used in wearable computing

http://handykey.com/index.html

Code for “a”

One handed cord keyset:

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A curiosity:

Keyless Keyboard

http://orbitouch.com/

It does not imply finger nor wrist motion

And allows good typing speed after training

Keyboards evolve...

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2470733&dl=ACM&coll=DL&CFID=351524605&CFTOKEN=49071188

Sunjun Kim, Jeongmin Son, Geehyuk Lee, Hwan Kim, and Woohun Lee. 2013. “TapBoard:

making a touch screen keyboard more touchable”. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on

Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '13), 553-562.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyLC5UeCbsA

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Innovation: A Motion Sensing Mechanical Keyboard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3dUeGNIX4M

Combining motion

gestures on and

directly above the

keys with regular

tactile typing

A Motion Sensing Mechanical Keyboard (cont)

S. Taylor, C. Keskin, O. Hilliges, O., S. Izadi &

J. Helmes. 2014. “Type–Hover–Swipe in 96

Bytes: A Motion Sensing Mechanical

Keyboard”. In Proceedings of CHI 2014, pp.

1695–1704

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Pointing Devices

They are used to:

• Point a target

• Select a target

• Drawing

• Positioning objects

• Orient and rotate objects

• Define paths among objects

• Handle text

• etc.

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• Their efficiency varies according to the tasks

• Shneiderman (98) divided them into:

– Direct control touch screen

light pen

– Indirect control mouse

track ball

digitizing tablet

joystick (track point)

touch pad

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Mice

Mechanic

Optical

• Relative coordinates

• Different shapes, n. of buttons,…

Advantages: distance

• Direct relation between hand and cursor movement speed

• Allow speed control direction

• Allow continuous movement in all directions

Disadvantages:

• Require hand movement between mouse and keyboard

• Additional space (footprint)

• Hand-eye coordination

Engelbart’s mouse

The mouse

http://www.dougengelbart.org/firsts/mouse.html

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http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/350

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First mice were mechanical (Sun, Microsoft,

Apple)

(3, 2 and 1 button)

Optical mouse

No sphere

Sensor works on

most surfaces

Other examples:

Inflated mouse

(more portable)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTA30qUSnqU

Trackball

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• “Upside down” mouse

• Relative coordinates

• Many different shapes

Advantages:

• Direct relation between hand and cursor movement (speed and direction)

• Allow speed control

• Allow continuous movement in all directions

• May not need additional space (footprint)

Disadvantages:

• Require hand-eye coordination

• May require hand movement between

trackball and keyboard

Trackballs

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Joysticks

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Ergonomic Pointing Devices

Zero tension mouse

For users with RSI/CTS and other problems

Quill mouse

Wireless Ergonomic Mouse Whale mouse

Gesture pad

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Digitizing tablets

• Direct relation between hand and cursor motion speed

• Speed control direction

• Continuous motion in all directions

• May have high resolution

Disadvantages:

• Hand movement between keyboard

and tablet

• Additional space (footprint)

These disadvantages may be overcome

using a pen “on the screen”

distance Advantages:

Adequate for digital art

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Sophisticated models:

- Extende sizes

- Multitouch sensitive surface

- Pressure sensitive pen

http://www.wacom.com/products/pen-tablets

“On the screen” - > touch screen

is most adequate for specific tasks: e.g. Seismic Interpretation

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http://opendtect.org/rel/doc/User/base/appendix_wacom.htm

Interaction mapping:

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Touch screens

Resistive (older, less expensive)

optical

Sonic stationary wave patterns

Capacitive

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/differences-

capacitive-resistive-touchscreens-si

http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ee16a/sp15/

Labs/touchscreen/ee16a_touchscreen_lab

3.html

39 http://computer.howstuffworks.com/touch-screens.htm

A resistive touch screen has two flexible sheets of

material that have an electronically resistive coating.

A gap separates the two sheets

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Advantages: distance

• Direct relation between hand and cursor movement speed

• Do not require additional space direction

• Allow continuous movement in all directions

Disadvantages:

• Finger may be too large for needed accuracy

• Tiresome over long usage time

• Finger may hide relevant information

• Screen may get dirty

• Other problems due to parallax (optical)

temperature and humidity (capacitive)

misalignment (resistive)

Touch screens

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Other input devices …

Tangible interfaces

and pedals

Kinect

(allows gesture interfaces)

Cyber Glove

https://www.youtube.com/watc

h?v=k2nuXX2thBA#t=63

http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=zJmrcEM-uvA

https://www.microsoft.com

/en-us/kinectforwindows/

https://www.vive.com/eu/

HTC Vive

https://www.leapmotion.com/

Leap motion

https://www.leapmotion.com/

To detect hand gestures: Leap motion controller

like Kinect, but offering finger gesture

recognition

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Input + output: Using a touchscreen banch for a virtual autopsy

https://www.tii.se/inside-explorer-at-the-british-museum

http://www.britishmuseum.org/channel/exhibitions/2012/virtua

l_autopsy_gebelein_man.aspx

Input + Output: Using a force-feedback glove in Physical Therapy

46 http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=201800

A stroke patient interacts with a virtual reality environment using a glove to "pour tea" during a therapy session

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Some guidelines to select these interaction devices

• Choose a device after a careful task analysis and test

• Minimize hand and eyes movements

• Use cursor keys for tasks involving:

– A lot of text manipulation

– Traversing a structured array of discrete objects

• Use touch screens when

– There is no training

– Targets are large, discrete and scattered

– Space is important

– No (or little) text entry

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Voice recognition systems

• The first system was developed in 1972 at Bell Lab

• It is becoming more used

• Has two types of challenges:

– Technological

– Human factors

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Voice recognition – Technological constraints

Research goes on and has as goals:

• Continuous speech processing

• Understanding of extended vocabularies

• User independency

• Very low error rates

• Operation in noisy environments

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Voice recognition as input

• Independently of the technology state of the art,

• Has advantages when the user:

– Has physical deficiency

– Must move around

– Has eyes busy

– Is in a low visibility or cluttered environment

• Has inherent disadvantages:

– Voice is transient

– Does not have natural feedback

– May disturb other people

– May result in lack of privacy

– May be slower and more tiresome (overloading STM)

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• Consider voice input when:

– The user has to move

– Has eyes or hands busy

• Avoid voice input when:

– Privacy is important

– Error taxes, even low, are not acceptable

– Usage frequency is high

– Speed is important

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Some guidelines for voice interfaces

• Provide output dialog with structure to guide input

• Use a distinct and familiar vocabulary to avoid errors

• Consider voice input if technology constraints are acceptable

considering:

– User training

– Ambient noise

– Vocabulary extent

– Error cost

Input devices for 3D interfaces

• Trackers: – Mechanical

– Magnetic (AC, DC)

– Optical

– Ultrasonic

– Inertial, ...

• Navigation and manipulation interfaces: – Tracker-based

– Trackballs

– 3D mice, ...

• Gesture interfaces: – Cyberglove

– Spatial gestures sensors

– …

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CyberTouch Glove

60 http://www.cyberglovesystems.com/cybertouch/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32f2UxKjydI

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Every year there are new devices …

http://www.highsnobiety.com/2015/11/01/gest/

Gest is a wearable device that allows you

to control your computer or mobile device

with your hands

April, 2016

Gest Final Update:

Did not go further!

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What future?

It seems likely that we will use more often:

gestures

two hand input

voice

3D pointers

wearable devices

whole-body environments

tactile/force feedback

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Conclusion

When choosing an input device, consider:

• Cost

• Generality

• DOFs (Degrees Of Freedom)

• Ergonomics / human factors

• Typical scenarios of use

• Output devices

• Interaction techniques

“The interface between humans and computers is harder than ever to define, we can interact with computers just by walking through a public space.”

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Sellen, A., Rogers, Y., Harper, R., & Rodden, T., “Human Values in the Digital Age”, Communications of the ACM, 52(3), March 2009, pp. 58–66

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• Technology shall not be used only because it is new!

• It is necessary to understand the usability of devices for the users

and the tasks they have to perform

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Main Bibliography: books

• A. Dix, J. Finley, G. Abowd, B. Russell, Human Computer Interaction, 3rd

Ed.Prentice Hall, 2003

• B.Shneiderman.C.Plaisant.M.Cohen.S.Jacobs, Designing the User

Interface- Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction, 5th ed.,

Addison Wesley, 2009

• G. Burdea and P. Coiffet, Virtual Reality Technology, 2nd ed. Jonh Wiley

and Sons, 2003