Phrasing Techniques for Multi-Stroke Selection Gestures
Ken Hinckley, François Guimbretière, Georg Apitz, Nicholas Chen, Maneesh Agrawala
Abstract
Pen gesture interfaces have difficulty supporting arbitrary multiple-stroke selections because lifting the pen introduces ambiguity as to whether the next stroke should add to the existing selection, or begin a new one. We explore and evaluate techniques that use a non-preferred-hand button or touchpad to phrase together one or more independent pen strokes into a unitary multistroke gesture. We then illustrate how such phrasing techniques can support multiple-stroke selection gestures with tapping, crossing, lassoing, disjoint selection, circles of exclusion, selection decorations, and implicit grouping operations. These capabilities extend the expressiveness of pen gesture interfaces and suggest new directions for multiple-stroke pen input techniques.
Full-tension technique timing diagram. The user draws three ink circles, then three selections (S1, S2, S3). The user issues a Move command (C1) and drags (D1) the selected objects to a desired location. The user may lift the pen while dragging (Di). Lifting the button ends the phrase.