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Exposing and understanding scrolling transfer functions

Published: 07 October 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Scrolling is controlled through many forms of input devices, such as mouse wheels, trackpad gestures, arrow keys, and joysticks. Performance with these devices can be adjusted by introducing variable transfer functions to alter the range of expressible speed, precision, and sensitivity. However, existing transfer functions are typically "black boxes" bundled into proprietary operating systems and drivers. This presents three problems for researchers: (1) a lack of knowledge about the current state of the field; (2) a difficulty in replicating research that uses scrolling devices; and (3) a potential experimental confound when evaluating scrolling devices and techniques. These three problems are caused by gaps in researchers' knowledge about what device and movement factors are important for scrolling transfer functions, and about how existing devices and drivers use these factors. We fill these knowledge gaps with a framework of transfer function factors for scrolling, and a method for analysing proprietary transfer functions---demonstrating how state of the art commercial devices accommodate some of the human control phenomena observed in prior studies.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    UIST '12: Proceedings of the 25th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology
    October 2012
    608 pages
    ISBN:9781450315807
    DOI:10.1145/2380116
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 07 October 2012

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    Author Tags

    1. control-display gain
    2. scroll acceleration
    3. scrolling
    4. transfer functions

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    Cited By

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    • (2024)Speed Labeling: Non-stop Scrolling for Fast Image LabelingProceedings of the 50th Graphics Interface Conference10.1145/3670947.3670958(1-10)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2024
    • (2023)TouchWheel: Enabling Flick-and-Stop Interaction on the Mouse WheelInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2023.219025940:13(3539-3551)Online publication date: 20-Mar-2023
    • (2022)Mapping Multimodel Scrolling Techniques for Foot-based Interaction Depending on the Cursor PositionProceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computing Advancements10.1145/3542954.3543066(89-96)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2022
    • (2019)Behavioral Petri Net Mining and Automated Analysis for Human-Computer Interaction Recommendations in Multi-Application EnvironmentsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/33311553:EICS(1-16)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2019
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    • (2017)The design, use, and performance of edge-scrolling techniquesInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2016.08.00197(58-76)Online publication date: Jan-2017
    • (2017)Hacking in the Blind: (Almost) Invisible Runtime User Interface AttacksCryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems – CHES 201710.1007/978-3-319-66787-4_23(468-489)Online publication date: 25-Aug-2017
    • (2016)Multi-touch trackpads in the wildActes de la 28ième conference francophone sur l'Interaction Homme-Machine10.1145/3004107.3004113(19-24)Online publication date: 25-Oct-2016
    • (2015)Exploring Boundless Scroll by Extending Motor SpaceProceedings of the 17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services10.1145/2785830.2785884(557-566)Online publication date: 24-Aug-2015
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