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Wizard of Oz for gesture prototyping

Jonker, J. (2008) Wizard of Oz for gesture prototyping.

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Abstract:Current computing has made a giant leap forwards in several areas over the past decades. Processing power, data storage, visualisation and connectivity have advanced almost beyond imagination. There is, however, one area where we still are stuck at the same level as in the beginning of personal computing: the input interfaces. In typical personal computing, a mouse and keyboard are both still an absolute requirement. For most applications, the mouse and keyboard do well enough to keep them in the picture, but for tasks like the manipulation of three dimensional objects, the traditional mouse has some shortcomings. A default mouse has only two degrees of freedom1 (DOF), whereas the human hand has six: three dimensional position and orientation, disregarding the fingers, which provide even more DOF. In order to employ mice in an environment where more than two degrees of freedom are needed, concessions have to be made, or the mouse is not suitable. Furthermore, when considering (very) large displays, using a mouse becomes ergonomically challenging (see Vogel and Balakrishnan, 2005). Finally, although using a mouse can almost be considered “natural” nowadays, one has to learn how to use it. This study attempts to put some steps into shifting above paradigm by redesigning the interaction of a traditional application. An application in which spatial informationis manipulated will be modified to be controlled by hand gestures only, since it is believed that this task could benefit from the shifted paradigm. This belief is supported by the fact that the two used map manipulation tasks have clear metaphors with physical manipulation. The digital analogy of a traditional map, the map application, was selected as program of choice. The map application shows a (large) map and offers two basic tasks: panning and zooming. Panning is the translation of the current view port to another location, while maintaining level of detail. Zooming is the act of changing the level of detail of the current view port on the map, without panning. It is believed that aforementioned tasks can be implemented with gestures using metaphors of a real, physical map.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Subject:54 computer science
Programme:Interaction Technology MSc (60030)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/58405
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