Abstract
Continuous pen pressure can be used to operate multi-state widgets such as menus in pen based user interfaces. The number of levels into which the pen pressure space is divided determines the number of states in the multi-state widgets. To increase the optimal number of divisions of the pen pressure space and achieve greater pen pressure usability, we propose a new discretization method which divides the pen pressure space according to a personal pen pressure use profile. We present here four variations of the method: discretization according to personal/aggregation pen pressure use profile with/without visual feedback of uniform level widths and the traditional even discretization method. Two experiments were conducted respectively to investigate pen pressure use profile and to comparatively evaluate the performance of these methods. Results indicate that the subjects performed fastest and with the fewest errors when the pen pressure space was divided according to personal profile with visual feedback of uniform level widths (PU) and performed worst when the pen pressure space was divided evenly. With PU method, the optimal number of divisions of the pen pressure space was 8. Visual feedback of uniform level widths enhanced performance of uneven discretization. The findings of this study have implications for human-oriented pen pressure use in pen pressure based user interface designs.
