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DriftBoard: A Panning-Based Text Entry Technique for Ultra-Small Touchscreens

Authors:

Tomoki Shibata,

Daniel Afergan,

Beste F. Yuksel,

I. Scott MacKenzie,

Robert J.K. JacobAuthors Info & Claims

UIST '16: Proceedings of the 29th Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

Pages 575 - 582

https://doi.org/10.1145/2984511.2984591

Published: 16 October 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Emerging ultra-small wearables like smartwatches pose a design challenge for touch-based text entry. This is due to the "fat-finger problem," wherein users struggle to select elements much smaller than their fingers. To address this challenge, we developed DriftBoard, a panning-based text entry technique where the user types by positioning a movable qwerty keyboard on an interactive area with respect to a fixed cursor point. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of DriftBoard and report results of a user study on a watch-size touchscreen. The study compared DriftBoard to two ultra-small keyboards, ZoomBoard (tapping-based) and Swipeboard (swiping-based). DriftBoard performed comparably (no significant difference) to ZoomBoard in the major metrics of text entry speed and error rate, and outperformed Swipeboard, which suggests that panning-based typing is a promising input method for text entry on ultra-small touchscreens.

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Rakhmetulla GArif A(2023)Crownboard: A One-Finger Crown-Based Smartwatch Keyboard for Users with Limited DexterityProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3580770(1-22)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3580770
Jang RJung CMohaisen DLee KNyang D(2022)A One-Page Text Entry Method Optimized for Rectangle SmartwatchesIEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing10.1109/TMC.2021.305722621:10(3443-3454)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2022
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Index Terms

DriftBoard: A Panning-Based Text Entry Technique for Ultra-Small Touchscreens
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)

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cover image ACM Conferences

UIST '16: Proceedings of the 29th Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

October 2016

908 pages

ISBN:9781450341899

DOI:10.1145/2984511

General Chairs:
Jun Rekimoto
The University of Tokyo
,
Takeo Igarashi
The University of Tokyo
,
Program Chairs:
Jacob O. Wobbrock
University of Washington
,
Daniel Avrahami
FXPAL

Copyright © 2016 ACM.

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Published: 16 October 2016

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National Science Foundation

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UIST '16: The 29th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

October 16 - 19, 2016

Tokyo, Japan

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UIST '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 79 of 384 submissions, 21%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 561 of 2,567 submissions, 22%

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The 38th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

September 28 - October 1, 2025

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Cited By

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642037
Rakhmetulla GArif A(2023)Crownboard: A One-Finger Crown-Based Smartwatch Keyboard for Users with Limited DexterityProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3580770(1-22)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3580770
Jang RJung CMohaisen DLee KNyang D(2022)A One-Page Text Entry Method Optimized for Rectangle SmartwatchesIEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing10.1109/TMC.2021.305722621:10(3443-3454)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/TMC.2021.3057226
Luna MNascimento HQuigley ASoares F(2022)Text entry for the Blind on SmartwatchesUniversal Access in the Information Society10.1007/s10209-022-00870-222:3(737-755)Online publication date: 17-Feb-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-022-00870-2
Kafaee MDaviran ETaqavi M(2022)The QWERTY keyboard from the perspective of the Collingridge dilemma: lessons for co-construction of human-technologyAI & SOCIETY10.1007/s00146-022-01573-139:3(1229-1241)Online publication date: 7-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-022-01573-1
Costagliola GDe Rosa MFuccella VMartin B(2022)BubbleBoard: A Zoom-Based Text Entry Method on SmartwatchesHuman-Computer Interaction. Technological Innovation10.1007/978-3-031-05409-9_2(14-27)Online publication date: 16-Jun-2022
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Vertanen K(2021)Probabilistic Text Entry—Case Study 3Intelligent Computing for Interactive System Design10.1145/3447404.3447420(277-320)Online publication date: 23-Feb-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3447404.3447420
Neshati ARey BMohommed Faleel ABardot SLatulipe CIrani PKitamura YQuigley AIsbister KIgarashi TBjørn PDrucker S(2021)BezelGlide: Interacting with Graphs on Smartwatches with Minimal Screen OcclusionProceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411764.3445201(1-13)Online publication date: 6-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3411764.3445201
Lee DKim JOakley IKitamura YQuigley AIsbister KIgarashi TBjørn PDrucker S(2021)FingerText: Exploring and Optimizing Performance for Wearable, Mobile and One-Handed TypingProceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411764.3445106(1-15)Online publication date: 6-May-2021
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Zhao WGo KKinoshita YGao Z(2021)Evaluation of the Text Input Performance of Touch-Based Smartwatches with Different Hand Postures and in Different Body Movements2021 International Conference on Cyberworlds (CW)10.1109/CW52790.2021.00046(225-228)Online publication date: Sep-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/CW52790.2021.00046
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