Hover Widget

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

A widget that provides direct access to tools and command buttons by performing L-shaped hover gestures on a pen-based interface, avoiding the need to reach a toolbar away from the work area.

Publications
Copy Bibtex Grossman, T.; Hinckley, K.; Baudisch, P.; Agrawala, M. and Balakrishnan, R. Hover Widgets: Using the Tracking State to Extend the Capabilities of Pen-operated Devices. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 861-870, ACM, New York, NY, USA, CHI '06 , 2006.
Also featured in
Storyboard of Functions

Perform an L-shaped gesture while hovering and touch down to run the command. In this animation, choose a brush color by hovering up-left.

Highlights:

Locus of attention is kept close to the work area. The technique leverages implicit learning of gestures.

Limitations:

Discoverability is a challenge given that the available commands are not permanently visible. Re-running a command requires the user to perform the same L-shaped gesture repeatedly.