Gesture based interfaces promise to increase the efficiency of user input, particularly in mobile computing where standard input devices such as the mouse and keyboard are impractical. This paper describes an investigation into the low-level physical properties of linear 'flick' gestures that users create using mouse and pen input devices. The study was motivated by our need to determine sensible constraints on values such as the magnitude, timing, and angular accuracy of gestures for a marking-menu implementation. The results show that pen gestures are substantially larger than mouse gestures, that angular errors are larger in the left and right directions with the pen, that vertical gestures are 'awkward' with the mouse, and that downwards gestures are approximately 11% slower than other directions.
Moyle and Cockburn, for example, analyzed mouse and pen flick gestures REF .
Analysing mouse and pen flick gestures
CHINZ '02
Computer Science