Paper Reading #16 - UIMarks

Comments:
Comment 1
Comment 2

References:
Title: UIMarks: Quick Graphical Interaction with Specific Targets
Authors: Olivier Chapuis and Nicolas Roussel
Venue: UIST 2010, Oct 3-6, 2010

Summary:
In this paper, the authors describe a system called UIMark for integrating target-aware pointing techniques with normal pointing techniques. The system allows for the programming of hot spots like the one pictured on the right. The user can activate these nodes by switching into a special pointing mode and moving a bubble cursor towards it. Then, the system performs the action specified by the node. The hot spots have symbols on them to indicate the actions performed on the hot spot; in this case, the hot spot will single click on the icon and return to the previous mouse position.

They then perform a study to determine the usability of the pointing system. They found that for most complex clicking tasks, UIMarks is faster than the traditional pointing method. However, if it is only used for mouse movement and not clicking, the system is slower than the traditional method. They then describe some future studies they would like to perform with the system.


Discussion:
I think that this is a reasonably good pointing system, but I'm not sure if many people would use it. I believe that having to program the system to provide the marks makes it a little to difficult and time-consuming for most. However, for power users, the system would be a boon. Being able to quickly move and click icons would be very useful; for example, the example above shows possibilities for Photoshop.

(Image courtesy of: the UIMarks paper)