Abstract
While ubiquitous data analytics is a promising approach, analyzing spreadsheets data on tablets is a tedious task due to the limited display size and touch vocabulary. In this paper, we present the design and evaluation of novel interaction techniques relying on the combination of a tablet, holding the data, and a smartphone, used as a mediator between the user and the tablet. To this end, we propose to use stacking gestures, i.e. laying one edge of a smartphone on the tablet screen. Stacking is a cheap, easy to implement and effective way of employing always-available smartphones to improve data analysis on tablets, by augmenting the input vocabulary and extending the display surface. We first explore stacking gestures to delimitate the possible interaction vocabulary and present the manufacturing of a conductive smartphone case. Then, we propose novel stacking-based techniques to perform spreadsheet data analysis, i.e. pivot table creation and manipulation. We evaluate our stacking techniques against touch interaction as provided by current mobile spreadsheet apps. Our studies reveal that some of our interaction techniques perform 30% faster than touch for creating pivot tables.
Highlights
Ubiquitous data analytics [9] consists in embedding the analytical process into the environment to make sense of data anywhere and anytime
After validating the initial and necessary step of selecting a cell range, we focus on the remaining actions needed to create and manipulate a pivot table to support ubiquitous data analysis
The results from this study first confirm that, even when combined with another task, a cell range selection requires on average 15% more time with the Tactile technique than with the stacking-based techniques, as established in the first experiment. They establish that filling a pivot table wizard with the Stack-andTranslate technique requires less time than the other techniques (7.3s against 8.3s for Dual-Screen Touch, 8.7s for Stack-and-Touch and 9.5s for Tactile): using the regular Tactile technique to create a pivot-table requires up to 30% more time than using the Stack-and-Translate technique
Summary
Ubiquitous data analytics [9] consists in embedding the analytical process into the environment to make sense of data anywhere and anytime. This type of analytical process is of growing importance as mobile devices and tablets become a professional computing platform [2]. Interaction with pivot tables on tablets is still difficult: the small display size (inducing multiple pans and views switching) and, most of all, the limitations of touch interaction (i.e. gestures mostly bound to navigation in the data space) fail at providing a convenient solution to create and adjust pivot tables for data analysis on tablets. Our work seeks to broaden the interaction possibilities for data analytics on tablets, by extending the currently available interaction capabilities
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