the bubble cursor
DESCRIPTION
We have created the bubble context menu, a new design for context menus combined with the bubble cursor to facilitate the access of the most frequent items in a context menu. Thus, we have decided to exploit the bubble cursor technique and incorporate in it the "hot items" principle presented in the paper regarding the bubbling menus. At first sight, our project looks exactly like a normal bubble cursor. When a user right-clicks on an item, the cursor is surrounded by a bubble that extends its field of action and a number of targets appears. By moving the cursor, according to the basic principle of the bubble cursor, the nearest target is always selected at any time and the bubble is resized dynamically depending on the proximity of surrounding targets. By right-clicking on an item on the screen, it is expected that a context menu would appear from which the user is able to choose the desired option. The improvement we have made is that what now appears is the bubble context menu: the elements of the context menu are represented as bubbles and arranged in a circle around the bubble cursor. Their position is fixed and the size depends on the frequency with which you click on them, which means that, if an element is used very often, it will have an extended area, be the first item selectable and provide an easy selection to the user. The user can use a left-click to select the item in focus and a further right-click to close the bubble context menu. On the other hand, an option that is not frequently used will remain the same size and will have a lower visual impact. We believe that this technique may turn out to be extremely useful: in fact, once the user has learnt the disposition of objects within the context menu, you can scan it without even looking at the menu that has just appeared. This way, the technique is very similar to the single-stroke gestures from the bubbling menus paper, where the menu uses the curvature of a gesture as a discriminating factor to trigger different commands.TRANSCRIPT
THE BUBBLE CURSOR Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction
Craig Kershaw & Francesco Bonadiman
THE CONTEXT
Paper by T. Grossman and R. Balakrishnan
CHI 2005 Best Paper Award Winner
Target acquisition technique
Dynamically resizes cursor activation area
Depends on proximity of surrounding targets
Only one target is selectable at any time 2
THE MOTIVATION
Improvements in pointing performance
significant impact on usability
Attempts to beat Fitts’ Law
By dynamically increasing the target width
Reduces target acquisition times
Performance equivalent to point cursor selecting
targets with size as bubble radius width 3
SQUARES VS. CIRCLES
Circles always captures the closest target first
4
A SIMPLE ALGORITHM
Continuously updates the radius of the bubble
Minimum distance between:
Furthest point of the closest target
Nearest point of the second closest
5
OUR IMPLEMENTATION
Implemented as bubble context menu
Right-click on item bubble cursor activation
Circular targets surrounding cursor
6
OUR IMPLEMENTATION
Facilitate access of most frequent items
Like “bubbling menus”
Size depending on frequency of clicks
Left-click to select the item in focus
New right-click to close
Selecting becomes instinctive
Gesture-like 7
DEMO Thank you!
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