MarkPad

International audienceWe present MarkPad, a novel interaction technique taking advantage of the touchpad. MarkPad allows creating a large number of size-dependent gestural shortcuts that can be spatially organized as desired by the user. It relies on the idea of using visual or tactile marks on the touchpad or a combination of them. Gestures start from a mark on the border and end on another mark anywhere. MarkPad does not conflict with standard interactions and provides a novice mode that acts as a rehearsal of the expert mode. A first study showed that an accuracy of 95% could be achieved for a dense configuration of tactile and/or visual marks allowing many gestures. Performance was 5% lower in a second study where the marks were only on the borders. A last study showed that borders are rarely used, even when the users are unaware of the technique. Finally, we present a working prototype and briefly report on how it was used by two users for a few months