- Paper: High-Precision Interaction with Back-Projected Floors Based on High-Resolution Multi-Touch Input
- View paper here.
- Authors:
- Thomas Augsten
- Konstantin Kaefer
- René Meusel
- Caroline Fetzer
- Dorian Kanitz
- Thomas Stoff
- Torsten Becker
- Christian Holz
- Patrick Baudisc
- All authors represent the Hasso Plattner Institute in Pottsdam, Germany, and with the exception of Becker, Holz, and Baudisc, this is their first publication.
- Presented at the 23rd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology.
- Hypothesis: Is a touch interface via a floor a viable user interface for large scale applications that cannot fit on a touch tabletop?
- Methods: Augsten et. al developed a small prototype and ran several tests on it. First, they asked participants to "activate" two pretend buttons on a floor, while "not activating" two others to observe the most natural way of activating a button with their feet. Next, they conducted a study where they asked participants to identify when they were "pressing" smaller buttons to determine what the default "hotspot" of the foot should be. Lastly, they experimented with three different sized keyboards to see which was most popular in terms of ease of use.
- Results: The first set of tests had extremely varied results, with strategies ranging from double-tapping vs walking around the button to hitting it with the right foot vs the left. However, simply walking was popular enough for "not-activation" to keep it the standard. The results of the second test were also varied, which led to the adoption of the calibration option for the foot's "hotspot". The third test, however, was nearly unanimous in favor of the large keyboard.
Summary
This article introduces the idea of a touch-based interface by means of your feet. The technology described here reads the sole of one's shoes to identify the user and, based on the pressure of certain areas of the sole, allows the user to interact with different applications. In addition, since the user is recognized by their footprint, if another user walks into their space, their work won't be affected. Examples of interactions include jumping to bring up a menu, tapping to activate a button, and shifting weight for head tracking. Austen et. al feel as though they have produced a successful product that will allow for much larger applications than a touch-based tabletop, and plan to continue their research to develop a larger prototype and investigate its usage towards "smart rooms".
My View
I'm reminded somewhat of that scene from "Big" where Tom Hanks is in the toy store and plays Chopsticks on a floor piano with the owner of the company he works for. But I digress...
My first thought towards this application is "neat". It's really a good concept with a lot of interesting applications through it, and the authors obviously spent a great amount of time and effort into making this work through every aspect possible. In particular, I like the idea of using a user-calibrated hotspot on the foot to select commands or type on the keyboard because that frees up a lot of space that could be used for other applications and makes typing more manageable. This seems like a fun application and I could see some great recreational uses coming out of it.
That being said, I do have a few concerns. Firstly, I mentioned that I could see this being for recreational purposes, but that's about it. I really cannot think of any other application that this might be used for by itself. The authors mention smart rooms as a future application, but that would have to be integrated with other technology as well to be practical, such as that used in the XBox Kinect. Also, I like how the authors addressed the issue of users changing shoes, but if they have two or more pairs of shoes that they use intermittently, do they have to select who they are every time they change shoes, or does the program still recognize them? Along that line, if the latter is true, if a certain pair of shoes is never used again, having that sole design still in the database seems like a bit of a memory leak to me. Also, I didn't really see a new user option, and one was never discussed in the paper.
All in all, I am much more fond of this application than some others that have been brought up in my readings, but I would love to know what exactly the authors plan on this being used for other than recreation, since I don't see myself typing a paper with my foot anytime soon.
My first thought towards this application is "neat". It's really a good concept with a lot of interesting applications through it, and the authors obviously spent a great amount of time and effort into making this work through every aspect possible. In particular, I like the idea of using a user-calibrated hotspot on the foot to select commands or type on the keyboard because that frees up a lot of space that could be used for other applications and makes typing more manageable. This seems like a fun application and I could see some great recreational uses coming out of it.
That being said, I do have a few concerns. Firstly, I mentioned that I could see this being for recreational purposes, but that's about it. I really cannot think of any other application that this might be used for by itself. The authors mention smart rooms as a future application, but that would have to be integrated with other technology as well to be practical, such as that used in the XBox Kinect. Also, I like how the authors addressed the issue of users changing shoes, but if they have two or more pairs of shoes that they use intermittently, do they have to select who they are every time they change shoes, or does the program still recognize them? Along that line, if the latter is true, if a certain pair of shoes is never used again, having that sole design still in the database seems like a bit of a memory leak to me. Also, I didn't really see a new user option, and one was never discussed in the paper.
All in all, I am much more fond of this application than some others that have been brought up in my readings, but I would love to know what exactly the authors plan on this being used for other than recreation, since I don't see myself typing a paper with my foot anytime soon.
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