The MTAGIC project has a new paper recently accepted to the Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces 2012 conference, to be held in Cambridge, MA, in November, entitled “Interaction and Recognition Challenges in Interpreting Children’s Touch and Gesture Input on Mobile Devices.” It continues our work on investigating differences in how children and adults use mobile touchscreen devices; this paper focuses on technical challenges in interpreting kids’ touch and gesture input and how that may be more difficult than interpreting adults’ input.
Here is the abstract:
As mobile devices like the iPad and iPhone become increasingly commonplace, for many users touchscreen interactions are quickly overtaking other interaction methods in terms of frequency and experience. However, most of these devices have been designed for the general, typical user. Trends indicate that children are using these devices (either their parents’ or their own) for entertainment or learning activities. Previous work has found key differences in how children use touch and surface gesture interaction modalities vs. adults. In this paper, we specifically examine the impact of these differences in terms of automatically and reliably understanding what kids meant to do. We present a study of children and adults performing touch and surface gesture interaction tasks on mobile devices. We identify challenges related to (a) intentional and unintentional touches outside of onscreen targets and (b) recognition of drawn gestures, that both indicate a need to design tailored interaction for children to accommodate and overcome these challenges.
Check out the camera-ready paper!
Lisa Anthony 