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Sticking Out Like a Non-dominant Thumb

Handedness and Fitts’ Throughput for Touch-Based Mobile Interfaces

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Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2021 (INTERACT 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 12934))

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Abstract

In this paper we present our study (n = 30) to gauge the effect of hand-dominance on Fitts’ throughput through four test cases—forefingers and thumbs of dominant and non-dominant hands in tapping tasks for touch-based mobile interfaces. We set out with the expectation that throughput for a dominant digit would exceed that for the corresponding digit of the other hand. We reveal that this was followed in the case of right-handed users for both forefingers and thumbs, and in case of forefingers for all users. Right-handed users had higher throughput for dominant digits (mean = 5.608) than non-dominant digits (mean = 4.736). All users had higher throughput for dominant forefingers (mean = 6.081) than non-dominant forefingers (mean = 5.436). However, surprisingly, left-handed users showed a higher throughput for non-dominant thumbs (mean = 6.078) than dominant thumbs (mean = 5.721). Throughputs of forefingers and thumbs were not significantly different for any groups.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Google Pixel 3a - weight: 147 g, dimensions: 151.3 × 70.1 × 8.2 mm (5.96 × 2.76 × 0.32 in.), display size (measured diagonally): 142.2 mm (5.6 in.), display resolution: 1080 × 2220 pixels, pixel density: 441 PPI.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, India

    Maulashree Shanbhag

  2. Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India

    Anirudha Joshi

  3. London, UK

    Bijoy Singh Kochar

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  1. Maulashree Shanbhag
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  2. Anirudha Joshi
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  3. Bijoy Singh Kochar
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Carmelo Ardito

  2. Computer Science Department, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy

    Rosa Lanzilotti

  3. Computer Science Department, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Alessio Malizia

  4. Department of Computer Science, University of York, York, UK

    Helen Petrie

  5. Computer Science Department, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy

    Antonio Piccinno

  6. Computer Science Department, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy

    Giuseppe Desolda

  7. Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA

    Kori Inkpen

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Shanbhag, M., Joshi, A., Kochar, B.S. (2021). Sticking Out Like a Non-dominant Thumb. In: Ardito, C., et al. Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2021. INTERACT 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12934. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85613-7_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85613-7_12

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-85612-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-85613-7

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