Handling ambiguous user input on touchscreen kiosks

Abstract

Touchscreen kiosks are becoming an increasingly popular means of providing a wide arrange of services to the public. However, the principal drawback of these types of systems lies within the elevated error rates due to finger imprecision and screen miscalibration. These issues become worrisome, considering the greater responsibilities and reliance placed upon touchscreens. This thesis investigates two novel techniques that attempt to alleviate these interaction problems. The first technique, predictive pointing, incorporates information regarding past interactions and an area cursor (which maps the user's touch to a circular area rather than a single point) to provide a better estimate of the intended selection. The second technique, gestural drawing, allows users to draw particular shapes onscreen to execute actions as an alternative means of input that is largely unaffected by issues of miscalibration. Results from a user study indicated that both techniques provided significant advantages in not only lowering error rates, but also improving task completion times over traditional tasks of target selection.