Kinematic Templates: End-User Tools for Content-Relative Cursor Manipulations

Author:

Richard Fung, Edward Lank, Michael Terry,

David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo

Celine Latulipe,

Department of Software and Information Systems, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Summary:

This paper discusses about kinematic templates, a cursor manipulation method that help users draw strokes. Initial analysis on 2 artist drawings showed that the artists use 2 types of strokes fine, controlled motor movements and coarse movements.

Drawing a sun – A conduroy template is used to draw straight, parallel line and sandpaper template to keep stroke within predefined circular region. 'dimple chad' template to guide lines from one point to the other. The strength of the manipulation depends on the templates chosen – active / passive templates. Passive templates vary control ratio and active templates represent functions that actively apply forces for changing the pointing devices independent of the cursor movement.

End-user interface:

Authoring,editing and attenuating templates:

involves creating an instance of template. This template gets added to the 'list of instantiated templates'. User can switch it ON/OFF according to the needs. The template can be moved by non-dominant hand.

Visual feedback: The template provides visual cues on what the changes would be when the cursor is hovered over the template.

Actively working against templates:

Discussion:

Need to read it once more. I like to know how comfortable are the user when their cursor position changes according to some function that they do not understand. Does the current pointer change according to template / does it change the set of points previous to the stroke?