Supporting Transitions To Expertise In Hidden Toolbars

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Date
2019-03-10Author
Schramm, Katherine 1989-
Type
ThesisDegree Level
MastersMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Hidden toolbars are becoming common on mobile devices. These techniques maximize the space available for application content by keeping tools off-screen until needed. However, current designs require several actions to make a selection, and they do not provide shortcuts for users who have become familiar with the toolbar. To better understand the performance capabilities and tradeoffs involved in hidden toolbars, we outline a design space that captures the key elements of these controls and report on an empirical evaluation of four designs. Two of our designs provide shortcuts that are based on the user’s spatial memory of item locations. The study found that toolbars with spatial-memory shortcuts had significantly better performance (700ms faster) than standard designs currently in use. Participants quickly learned the shortcut selection method (although switching to a memory-based method led to higher error rates than the visually-guided techniques). Participants strongly preferred one of the shortcut methods that allowed selections by swiping across the screen bezel at the location of the desired item. This work shows that shortcut techniques are feasible and desirable on touch devices and shows that spatial memory can provide a foundation for designing shortcuts.
Degree
Master of Science (M.Sc.)Department
Computer ScienceProgram
Computer ScienceSupervisor
Gutwin, CarlCommittee
Mondal, Debajyoti; Mandryk, Regan; Zhang, ChrisCopyright Date
January 2019Subject
Human Computer Interaction
Interaction Techniques
Toolbars
Expertise
Spatial Memory