Paper Reading #14: Sensing Foot Gestures from the Pocket

Comments:
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Reference Information:
Title: Multitoe: Sensing Foot Gestures from the Pocket
Authors: Jeremy Scott, David Dearman, Koji Yatani, and Khai N. Truong
Presentation Venue: UIST’10, October 3–6, 2010, New Yomrk, New York, USA

Summary:

This paper discusses an interface for mobile phones. The interface is hands-free because input is taken from movement in the user's foot. The interface also allows an eyes-free environment by not demanding the user's attention to the mobile devices scree. This is done by giving feedback through vibrating the phone or making noises.

Ways the user could have there phone while interacting

A study was done to see what kind of movements worked best for the user in terms of accuracy and what was the most comfortable. It showed that the plantar flexion movement was the most accurate movement but selection error had consistant error for all movements. The users preffered gestures which involved lifting or rotating the toe, however this was the least accurate. From this data a follow up was done with an accelerometer in a mobile phone in the user's pocket or holster. This follow up showed that they could get the accelerometer to be 86% accurate when tracking these movements.

The paper goes on compare the different axis of rotation and how accurate and comparable they are.

Different ranges of motions and shows that each item selection was 10 degrees apart.

Discussion:
I got a weird feeling from this paper when I thought about who would sacrifice the accuracy that you get from your fingers for the accuracy you get from your foot. This also includes the fact that on mobile phones when you hit a button you are physically putting force on the button which gives you a better sense of what is being pressed. I'm also not sure what kind of applications this kind of idea could be used for. However, I do feel that this paper was written not to promote the interface but to promote the study of thinking of new ways to interact with mobile devices, which is interesting. I like the idea of having more feedback from a device so the user would not have to give 100% of their attention to the task they are doing. I think this will be interesting and useful in small tasks that don't have any importance. This is because I believe the user would much rather devote full attention to the device in these times.