FaST Sliders

Validation level: 5. CHI, UIST, CSCW and TOCHI paper publication

FaST Sliders stands for “Flick and Slide or Tweak”. It is a transient slider interaction technique that allows fast and casual operation consistent with marking menus. Instead of grouping several sliders together, FaST sliders have a marking menu, which allows users to select very quickly and casually the desired option and then a slider appears accordingly.

Publications
Copy Bibtex McGuffin, M. J.; Burtnyk, N. and Kurtenbach, G. FaST Sliders: Integrating Marking Menus and the Adjustment. In Graphics Interface, 2002.
Also featured in
Storyboard of Functions

The FaST sliders have three different steps. The first one corresponds to the "Flick Step – Selection of a value". The user pops up a marking menu by holding down a mouse button.

The second step corresponds to "Slide Step – Adjustment of the value". A slider appears with its wiper directly under the cursor. In this step, if the cursor is moved, the entire slider follows the cursor.

The third step is "Tweak Step – Additional controls." If the user drags the cursor off the wiper, new additional controls might appear (optional).

Highlights:
  • Resolves the problem of space in the screen and movement, since the follow-mode allows a user to relocate the slider to a better screen location before adjusting.
  • Users who preferred FaST Sliders technique reported they liked the ability to release and tweak, saying that FaST Sliders were the “safest” and “most stable” of the techniques.
Limitations:
  • It is hard to have a precise value adjustment with Fast sliders because it always moves 1-2 more pixels.