Hover-Based Reachability Technique for Executing Single-Touch Gesture on Smartphone

Abstract

When operating a smartphone with only one hand, users typically use their thumb; however, there may be areas on the screen that the thumb cannot reach. Several reachability techniques have been developed to enable users to access such areas, but many of these techniques are designed to enable users to perform only a tap gesture, so other single-touch gestures such as long-tap, double-tap, swipe, and drag cannot be performed. To enable all single-touch gestures for unreachable areas, we designed a hover-based reachability technique that uses a cursor. In addition, we conducted a pilot study to compare user performance with our technique and that of existing techniques, One-Handed Mode (OM) and Event Forward Cursor (EC). The results showed that our technique was faster than EC, which uses the same cursor technique as ours, except for the double-tap gesture when the target was small. However, our technique was slower than OM, which is the technique that shrinks the entire screen. Lastly, we discuss possible improvements of our technique on the basis of the results.