Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Designing smarter touch-based interfaces for educational contexts

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Personal and Ubiquitous Computing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In next-generation classrooms and educational environments, interactive technologies such as surface computing, natural gesture interfaces, and mobile devices will enable new means of motivating and engaging students in active learning. Our foundational studies provide a corpus of over 10,000 touch interactions and nearly 7,000 gestures collected from nearly 70 adults and children aged 7 years and above, which can help us understand the characteristics of children’s interactions in these modalities and how they differ from adults. Based on these data, we identify key design and implementation challenges of supporting children’s touch and gesture interactions, and we suggest ways to address them. For example, we find children have more trouble successfully acquiring onscreen targets and having their gestures recognized than do adults, especially the youngest age group (7–10 years old). The contributions of this work provide a foundation that will enable touch-based interactive educational apps that increase student success.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. We did not include command gestures common today such as swipe and pinch-to-zoom, based both on initial studies finding that these gestures are difficult for children [9], and on the prevalence of tracing or handwriting practice activities in children’s education apps today [2]. Future work could examine other gestures in more depth.

  2. User-dependent testing refers to recognition testing in which the recognizer is trained on samples of the same person’s writing on which it is to be tested. User-independent testing refers to training and testing on samples only from different users.

  3. Note that the Tablet PC recognizer is only suited for handwriting gestures, so we removed arch, arrowhead, checkmark, diamond, heart, rectangle and triangle from the results; circle, line and plus have keyboard symbol equivalents and were kept, along with all the numbers and letters in the corpus.

References

  1. Accot J, Zhai S (2002) More than dotting the i’s—foundations for crossing-based interfaces. In: Proceedings of the CHI 2002. ACM Press, pp 73–80

  2. Anthony L, Brown Q, Nias J, Tate B, Mohan S (2012) Interaction and recognition challenges in interpreting children’s touch and gesture input on mobile devices. In: Proceedings of the ITS 2012. ACM Press, pp 225–234

  3. Anthony L, Wobbrock JO (2012) $N-protractor: a fast and accurate multistroke recognizer. In: Proceedings of the GI 2012. Canadian Information Processing Society, pp 117–120

  4. Baudisch P, Chu G (2009) Back-of-device interaction allows creating very small touch devices. In: Proceedings of the CHI 2009. ACM Press, pp 1923–1932

  5. Beery K, Buktenica N, Beery NA (2004) The beery-buktenica developmental test of visual-motor integration, 5th edn. Modern Curriculum Press, New Jersey

    Google Scholar 

  6. Benko H, Wilson AD, Baudisch P (2006) Precise selection techniques for multi-touch screens. In: Proceedings of the CHI 2006. ACM Press, pp 1263–1272

  7. Brown Q, Anthony L, Brewer R, Irwin G, Nias J, Tate B (2013) Challenges of replicating empirical studies with children in HCI. In: ACM SIGCHI RepliCHI workshop 2013, p 5

  8. Brown Q, Anthony L (2012) Toward comparing the touchscreen interaction patterns of kids and adults. In: ACM SIGCHI EIST workshop 2012, p 4

  9. Brown Q, Hatley L, Bonsignore EM, Druin A (2011) Mobile natives: unlocking the potential of educational technology. In: ACM SIGCHI 2nd workshop on UI technologies and their impact on educational pedagogy 2011, p 4

  10. Chen YS, Kao TC, Sheu JP (2003) A mobile learning system for scaffolding bird watching learning. J Comput Assist Learn 19(3):347–359

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Cordova DI, Lepper MR (1996) Intrinsic motivation and the process of learning: beneficial effects of contextualization, personalization, and choice. J Educ Psychol 88(4):715–730

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Donker A, Reitsma P (2007) Aiming and clicking in young children’s use of the computer mouse. Comput Human Behav 23(6):2863–2874

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Findlater L, Wobbrock JO (2012) Personalized input: improving ten-finger touchscreen typing through automatic adaptation. In: Proceedings of the CHI 2012. ACM Press, pp 815–824

  14. Fitts PM (1954) The information capacity of the human motor system in controlling the amplitude of movement. J Exp Psychol 47(6):381–391

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Goodman J, Venolia G, Steury K, Parker C (2002) Language modeling for soft keyboards. In: Proceedings of the IUI 2002. ACM Press, pp 194–195

  16. Harris A, Rick J, Bonnett V, Yuill N, Fleck R, Marshall P, Rogers Y (2009) Around the table: are multiple-touch surfaces better than single-touch for children’s collaborative interactions? In: Proceedings of the CSCL 2009. ISLS, pp 335–344

  17. Henze N, Poppinga B (2012) Measuring latency of touch and tactile feedback in touchscreen interaction using a mobile game. In: ACM mobileHCI workshop on research in the large 2012

  18. Henze N, Rukzio E, Boll S (2011) 100,000,000 taps: analysis and improvement of touch performance in the large. In: Proceedings of the mobileHCI 2011. ACM Press, pp 133–142

  19. Hinrichs U, Carpendale S (2011) Gestures in the wild. In: Proceedings of the CHI 2011. ACM Press, pp 3023–3032

  20. Holz C, Baudisch P (2011) Understanding touch. In: Proceedings of the CHI 2011. ACM Press, pp 2501–2510

  21. Hourcade JP, Bederson BB, Druin A, Guimbretière F (2004) Differences in pointing task performance between preschool children and adults using mice. ACM Trans Comput Human Interact 11(4):357–386

    Google Scholar 

  22. Hurley A (2010) Cognitive development: an overview. Tufts open course ware, 2010. http://ocw.tufts.edu/Content/35/lecturenotes/375938

  23. Inkpen KM (2001) Drag-and-drop versus point-and-click mouse interaction styles for children. ACM ToCHI 8(1):1–33

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Joiner R, Messer D, Light P, Littleton K (1998) It is best to point for young children: a comparison of children’s pointing and dragging. Comput Human Behav 14(3):513–529

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Jones T (1991) An empirical study of children’s use of computer pointing devices. J Educ Comput Res 7(1):61–76

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Kaaresoja T, Brewster S (2010) Feedback is… late: measuring multimodal delays in mobile device touchscreen interaction. In: Proceedings of the ICMI-MLMI 2010. ACM Press, Article No. 2

  27. Kane SK, Avrahami D, Wobbrock JO, Harrison B, Rea AD, Philipose M, LaMarca A (2009) Bonfire: a nomadic system for hybrid laptop-tabletop interaction. In: Proceedings of the UIST 2009. ACM Press, pp 129–138

  28. LaLomia M (1994) User acceptance of handwritten recognition accuracy. Extraction Abstracts CHI 1994. ACM Press, pp 107–108

  29. Lave J, Wenger E (1991) Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  30. Lin M, Price KJ, Goldman R, Sears A, Jacko J (2005) Tapping on the move-Fitts’ law under mobile conditions. In: Proceedings of the Information Results Management Association International Conference 2005, pp 132–135

  31. McKnight L, Cassidy B (2010) Children’s interaction with mobile touch-screen devices. Int J Mobile Human Comput Interact 2(2):18

    Google Scholar 

  32. Norris C, Soloway E (2004) Envisioning the handheld-centric classroom. J Educ Comput Res 30(4):281–294

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Parhi P, Karlson AK, Bederson BB (2006) Target size study for one-handed thumb use on small touchscreen devices. In: Proceedings of the mobileHCI 2006. ACM Press, pp 203–210

  34. Piaget J (1983) Piaget’s theory. In: Mussen P (ed) Handbook of child psychology. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  35. Potter RL, Weldon LJ, Shneiderman B (1988) Improving the accuracy of touch screens: an experimental evaluation of three strategies. In: Proceedings of the CHI 1988. ACM Press, pp 27–32

  36. Read JC, MacFarlane S, Casey C (2002) Pens behaving badly-usability of pens and graphics tablets for text entry with children. In: Adjacent Proceedings of the UIST 2002. ACM Press, pp 21–22

  37. Read JC, MacFarlane S, Casey C (2003) Good enough for what?: acceptance of handwriting recognition errors by child users. In: Proceedings of the IDC 2003. ACM Press, pp 155–155

  38. Rick J, Harris A, Marshall P, Fleck R, Yuill N, Rogers Y (2009) Children designing together on a multi-touch tabletop: an analysis of spatial orientation and user interactions. In: Proc. IDC 2009. ACM Press, pp 106–114

  39. Rösblad B (2006) Reaching and eye-hand coordination. In: Henderson A, Pehoski C (eds) Hand function in the child: foundations for remediation. Mosby Elsevier, St. Louis

    Google Scholar 

  40. Ryall K, Morris MR, Everitt K, Forlines C, Shen C (2006) Experiences with and observations of direct-touch tabletops. In: Proceedings of the tabletop 2006. IEEE, p 8

  41. Sesame workshop (2012) Best practices: designing touch tablet experiences for preschoolers. Sesame Workshop, New York

  42. Sharples M, Amedillo Sanchez I, Milrad M, Vavoula G (2009) Mobile learning: small devices, big issues. In: Balacheff N, Ludvigsen S, de Jong T, Barnes S (eds) Technology enhanced learning: principles and products. Springer, Heidelberg, pp 233–249

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  43. Shuler C (2009) Pockets of potential: using mobile technologies to promote children’s learning. Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, New York

    Google Scholar 

  44. Thomas JR (1980) Acquisition of motor skills: information processing differences between children and adults. Res Q Exerc Sport 51(1):158–173

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Vatavu R-D, Anthony L, Wobbrock JO (2012) Gestures as point clouds: a $P recognizer for user interface prototypes. In: Proceedings of the ICMI 2012. ACM Press, pp 273–280

  46. Vatavu RD, Vogel D, Casiez G, Grisoni L (2011) Estimating the perceived difficulty of pen gestures. In: Proceedings of the interact 2011. Springer, pp 89–106

  47. Vogel D, Balakrishnan R (2010) Direct pen interaction with a conventional graphical user interface. Human Comput Interact 25(4):324–388

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Chiamaka Okorohoa, Thaddeus Brown, Monique Ogburn, and Shreya Mohan for their support of this research. This work was partially supported by Department of Education HBGI Grant Award #P031B090207-11 and National Science Foundation Grant Awards #IIS-1218395/IIS-1218664. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect these agencies’ views.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Lisa Anthony, Robin Brewer & Germaine Irwin

  2. Bowie State University, Bowie, MD, USA

    Quincy Brown, Berthel Tate & Jaye Nias

Authors
  1. Lisa Anthony
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Quincy Brown
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Berthel Tate
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Jaye Nias
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Robin Brewer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Germaine Irwin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lisa Anthony.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Anthony, L., Brown, Q., Tate, B. et al. Designing smarter touch-based interfaces for educational contexts. Pers Ubiquit Comput 18, 1471–1483 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-013-0749-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-013-0749-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation