Boomerang

Boomerang: SuspendableDrag-and-Drop Interactions Basedon a Throw-and-Catch Metaphor

Masatomo Kobayashi

Takeo Igarashi

(The University of Tokyo)

Outline

Background & Motivation

Our Approach

Early Feedback

Conclusion & Future Work

Background

Drag & drop is versatile and easy to use.

Move

Copy

Create a shortcut

Open

(Application specific operations)

Problems while dragging

Demo

The drop target is often invisible:

hidden outside the scrolling rectangle

hidden by overlapping windows

hidden in a deep folder

hidden in another tab, page, slide, …

Problems while dragging

Window-scrolling, switching, etc. are difficult or impossible while dragging.

Previous work

Window-switchingWindow-scrolling

hovering hovering

Hovering-based interactions are less efficient than clicking-based ones.

Using heuristics/predictionWindow-switching

Previous work

Fold & Drop[Dragicevic 2004]

Drag & Guess[Nishida & Igarashi 2007]

Drag & Pop[Baudisch et al. 2003]

Many other operations are still difficult or impossible.

Rock & Roll[Chapuis & Roussel 2007]

Outline

Background & Motivation

Our Approach

Early Feedback

Conclusion & Future Work

Suspending a dragging operation

CatchThrow

Suspend dragging

Resume dragging

Any operation

Suspending a dragging operation

Demo

Demo summary

Throw: suspend a dragging operationCatch: resume the suspended operationSpinning animationAnimating, translucent marksSuspending multiple dragging operationsGroupingCopying, deleting

Differences betweenboomerang and cut-and-paste

More versatile than cut-and-paste.Opening a file with a specific application.Application-specific operations.

‣embedding an object, opening a URL, …

Provides visual feedbacks while dragging.

Works without menus/shortcut keys.

Boomerang is an extension of drag-and-drop.

Differences betweenboomerang and cut-and-paste

The user can also use it just like traditional drag-and-drop techniques.As long as the target is not hidden.

Boomerang is an extension of drag-and-drop.

Outline

Background & Motivation

Our Approach

Early Feedback

Conclusion & Future Work

Informal study

Asked four users to try the boomerang for 10-15 min.

Provided a set of files and folders.

Early Feedback

Will be useful

Feature Feedback

Throw-and-catch

Grouping

Copying, deleting

Exciting

Maybe difficult for novices

Will be useful

Easy to use

Difficult to use

Likely causes errors

Outline

Background & Motivation

Our Approach

Early Feedback

Conclusion & Future Work

ConclusionThe throw-and-catch interaction makes dragging operations suspendable.

CatchThrow

Any operation

Boomerang supports grouping, copying, & deleting.

Grouping Copying Deleting

Conclusion

Temporary Glass Pane

Gesture

Conclusion

A simple gesture can enhance a common WIMP interface, preserving existing functionalities.

Limitations

The throwing gesture will be difficult for novices and elders.Another gesture (or button, shortcut key)

might be preferable.

Limitations

Failed gestures might cause serious errors.e.g., If the user failed to throw an item, the

item will be dropped unexpectedly.

Future WorkPerform experiments to assess the advantages and disadvantages of the boomerang technique.

Window-switchingWindow-scrolling

?? Can it improve the performance?

?? How does the user fail to throw and catch?

Thank you.