Paul Cairns paul.cairns@york.ac.uk ARMH: Fitts’ Law Paul Cairns paul.cairns@york.ac.uk
A law?!?! One of the few in HCI Predictive Reliable Valuable research tool! ARMH: Fitts' Law
Today’s objectives Fitts’ Law Theoretical basis Adaptations for HCI Implications for design ARMH: Fitts' Law
Overview Model for prediction Time to point Difficulty of target ARMH: Fitts' Law
A demo Interactive Fitts' Law talk Not quite accurate! ARMH: Fitts' Law
Fitts’ Proposed Law D 1/W a, b Log? ARMH: Fitts' Law
Theory (or Analogy?) Analogy with Shannon information Meyer’s derivation MacKenzie’s improvement ARMH: Fitts' Law
Terms Index of difficulty Throughput, IP, 1/b bits bits per second ARMH: Fitts' Law
Impact in HCI Reduce ID Compare IP Put things in edges and corners Bigger icons, more space Compare IP “Capacity” of input devices Put things in edges and corners ARMH: Fitts' Law
Deconstructing Fitts Ecological validity Construct validity ARMH: Fitts' Law
What Fitts did: W D ARMH: Fitts' Law
Let’s have a go! ARMH: Fitts' Law
What we apply it to: ARMH: Fitts' Law
Dimensionality Fitts is 1d Does 2d matter? not a lot! Better models produce better fit ARMH: Fitts' Law
Correcting for W W’ – actual cross-section Smaller of W and H Area, W x H Sum, W + H Stick with W Which is best? ARMH: Fitts' Law
Implications debunked Edges are better Corners are best Mice are non-linear anyway! ARMH: Fitts' Law
Toolbars This is annoying not useful ARMH: Fitts' Law
What remains? D/“W” is key Non-linear (concave), monotonic Target size (angle) Stopping range (proportion) Non-linear (concave), monotonic Quite possibly log function IP is meaningful a is important ARMH: Fitts' Law
Novel interactions Artificially increasing W Changing select “Sticky” buttons Bubbles Changing select Goal-crossing ARMH: Fitts' Law
Novel devices Comparing throughput Fat finger problem! touchscreens Wii Kinect (in air pointing) Eye Gaze Fat finger problem! ARMH: Fitts' Law
Thoughts on Modelling Is it a good model? Yes, it fits the data No, we don’t know why! Could we produce a better one? How? ARMH: Fitts' Law
Advanced Fitts’ Law Fitts’ law as a model Steering law Games Menu navigation VE/VR? ARMH: Fitts' Law
Reading for today MacKenzie (1992) Fitts’ Law as a Research and Design Tool…, HCI (7), 91-139 MacKenzie & Buxton (1992) Extending Fitts’ Law to 2d tasks, CHI 1992, 219-226 Interaction Design, 2nd edn Cockburn & Firth (2003) Improving the acquisition of small targets. BCS HCI 03, 181-196 Accot & Zhai (1997) Beyond Fitts’ Law… ACM CHI 97, 295-302 Bi et al (2013) FFitts Law. ARMH: Fitts' Law