Quill: a gesture design tool for pen-based user interfaces

Abstract

Pen-based user interfaces are becoming more prevalent. Gestures are a powerful and convenient way to interact using a pen, but are difficult to design well. This paper describes the first intelligent gesture design tool, quill, which assists designers in creating and improving gestures for pen-based interfaces, both in terms of computer recognizability and likelihood of confusion among gestures by people. quill helps designers improve their gestures by warning them about potential problems with their gestures and offering advice about how to fix them. An evaluation with professional designers showed this type of advice to be promising, but requires care to implement well.