Moreover, we combine the key insights to lay the foundation to evaluate every new interaction technique based on the same in-depth evaluation.
This thesis contributes these four key insights to fully understand finger orientation as an additional input technique. Lastly, we present three ways how new interaction techniques like finger orientation input can be communicated to the user. Third, we present a method to analyze applications in social settings to design use cases with possible conversation disruption in mind. Second, we present design guidelines for a comfortable use of finger orientation. We first investigate approaches to recognize finger orientation input and provide ready-to-deploy models to recognize the orientation. With these insights, we provide designers with the foundation to design new gestures sets and use cases which take the finger orientation into account. We investigate four key areas which make up the foundation to fully understand finger orientation as an additional input technique. We propose to use the user’s finger orientation as two additional input dimensions. In this thesis, we investigate the potential of enriching a simple touch with additional information about the finger touching the screen. However, current touch devices reduce the richness of touch input to two-dimensional positions on the screen. GUI controls can directly be manipulated by simply touching them. Through direct touch, users can directly interact with graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Moreover, the phone as the most prominent ubiquitous computing device is heavily relying on touch interaction as the dominant input mode. Today, we mostly interact with ubiquitous computing devices, and while the first ubiquitous devices were controlled via buttons, this changed with the invention of touchscreens. However, the interaction with desktop and laptop computers today only make up a small percentage of current interaction with computing devices. The keyboard is still one of the two main input devices for desktop computers which is accompanied most of the time by a mouse or trackpad. Since the first digital computer in 1941 and the first personal computer back in 1975, the way we interact with computers has radically changed. The findings of this study may be helpful in the ergonomic design of touchscreen panels for kitchen appliances, which can improve the usability of these panels and reduce human errors and response time in emergencies. The following major findings were obtained: (1) the control panel angle affected the scores of all three measures and (2) when considering visibility, physical comfort, and preference comprehensively, the panel angle ranges 15°–42° and 15°–19° were recommended as the appropriate and optimal ranges, respectively.
For each of the six panel angles, 20 participants performed temperature/power-level setting tasks and then subjectively rated the panel angle in terms of the three measures. Three usability evaluation measures, namely, visibility, physical comfort, and preference, were employed. A total of six panel angles, namely, 0°, 15°, 30°, 45°, 60°, and 90°, were employed in the experiment in consideration of the design parameter values used in existing slide-in/freestanding ranges. Therefore, in this study, the effect of the control panel angle of touchscreen kitchen appliances on their usability was empirically investigated for providing appropriate ergonomic recommendations. There are only a few safety-oriented regulations or guidelines for kitchen appliance design. However, few studies have been conducted regarding the panel angle effects in the context of kitchen appliances. Among these design parameters, the panel angle is one of the most important factors influencing the usability and user preference. Control panels for kitchen appliances have been designed in various forms and with different design parameter values.