PDA and Gesture Use in Practice: Insights for Designers of Pen-based User Interfaces

Abstract

Gestures are an essential element in the realization of paper-like user interfaces. Unfortunately, poor design and recognition of gestures has impeded the adoption of these interfaces. This paper describes a survey intended to illuminate the problems users have and benefits users enjoy with gesture-based user interfaces. From the results of the survey, we conclude that: users value gestures yet problems with gestures remain; users demand more gestures; and Newtons are used largely as notebooks whereas Pilots are used mostly has personal datebooks and addressbooks. The results of the survey provide insight for designers of penbased user interfaces and related tools. Keywords PDA, pen-based user interface, gestures INTRODUCTION Pen and paper has a long history as a way of recording many kinds of information. Pen-based user interfaces promise to have many of the benefits of pen and paper, but current pen-based user interfaces have not lived up to this ideal. In particular, gestures in...