PointerPhone: Using mobile phones for direct pointing interactions with remote displays

Abstract

Large screens or projections in public and private settings have become part of our daily lives, as they enable the collaboration and presentation of information in many diverse ways. When discussing the shown information with other persons, we often point to a displayed object with our index finger or a laser pointer in order to talk about it. Although mobile phone-based interactions with remote screens have been investigated intensively in the last decade, none of them considered such direct pointing interactions for application in everyday tasks. In this paper, we present the concept and design space of PointerPhone which enables users to directly point at objects on a remote screen with their mobile phone and interact with them in a natural and seamless way. We detail the design space and distinguish three categories of interactions including low-level interactions using the mobile phone as a precise and fast pointing device, as well as an input and output device. We detail the category of widget-level interactions. Further, we demonstrate versatile high-level interaction techniques and show their application in a collaborative presentation scenario. Based on the results of a qualitative study, we provide design implications for application designs. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.