Improving usability of pen interface through separation of interaction space

Abstract

Digital pen interaction consists of three interactions: pen input, pen input space manipulation, and pen workspace navigation. In the pen interaction environment, existing pen interfaces provide these interactions in one input space. Therefore, users perform pen interactions by switching between interactions. However, in this transition process, usability issues such as cognitive load and context recovery occur, and the experience of using the pen is impaired. In this study, I explore the design of an interface that solves the usability issues of digital pen interaction on a single display by utilizing the two input/output spaces. As a result, I separated the overlapped pen interactions into two interaction spaces(Pen input space and Workspace). In this study, I first consider the optimal posture that can effectively provide two interfaces. Next, two research questions are addressed. First, how do you separate the three interactions into two input channels and design them for each? Second, does the optimal interface design provide effective pen interaction by solving the usability issue? To solve these two research questions, I performed three research steps. First is an interface concept design that utilizes dual displays to interact with a pen. Second, it is experimentally verified whether the designed interface solves the usability issue compared to the methods provided in the conventional environment. In this study, I explored the research problems presented in representative scenarios of 2D and 3D information space, respectively. I presented an optimized design, showing that the proposed design can provide effective pen interaction to users in a pen interface environment.