Swabbing: Touchscreen-based input technique for people with hand tremor

Abstract

Interacting with touchscreen computer systems is a challenging task for elderly tremor patients, because of a lower input accuracy caused by their tremor symptoms. Previous observations by Mertens et al. suggested that continuous movements are able to lower these symptoms. In this paper Swabbing, a input method for touchscreen systems based on such motions, is presented. A user study will show that Swabbing is able to reduce the error rate while proving equal user satisfaction compared to standard input techniques. Furthermore reasons for these benefits will be argued and explained with the use of accuracy measures by MacKenzie et al. In the end possible future enhancements of Swabbing will be discussed. © 2012 - IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved.