Living with a Tabletop: Analysis and Observations of Long Term Office Use of a Multi-Touch Table

Abstract

Multi-touch tabletops have been the focus of significant recent study but, to date, few devices have moved from prototype to installed use. In this paper, we present observation and analysis of a subject who has used a direct-touch tabletop as his primary computing environment for the past 13 months, driving all manner of applications in a standard MS Windows environment. We present the results of three research instruments: a structured interview with the user, an analysis of touch and click locations when operating in desktop and tabletop modes over several days, and linguistic analysis of email composition over several months. From the product of these instruments we then report on several open avenues for research, including physical parameters, hardware limitations, touch vs. click in the WIMP, and text entry techniques.