Investigating Gesture Typing for Indirect Touch

(IMWUT ’19) Zhican Yang, Chun Yu, Xin Yi, Yuanchun Shi
With the development of ubiquitous computing, entering text on HMDs and smart TVs using handheld touchscreen devices (e.g., smartphone and controller) is becoming more and more attractive. In these indirect touch scenarios, the touch input surface is decoupled from the visual display. In this paper, we investigate the feasibility of gesture typing for indirect touch since keeping the finger in touch with the screen during typing makes it possible to provide continuous visual feedback, which is beneficial for increasing the input performance. We propose an improved design to address the uncertainty and inaccuracy of the first touch. Evaluation result shows that users can quickly acquire indirect gesture typing, and type 22.3 words per minute after 30 phases, which significantly outperforms previous numbers in literature. Our work provides the empirical support for leveraging gesture typing for indirect touch.
[Video][Paper]