TouchTap: A gestural technique to edit text on multi-touch capable mobile devices

Abstract

We present the design and evaluation of a gesture-based interaction technique for text editing on mobile devices equipped with touchscreens. The technique includes both taps and gestures to be drawn on the top of the soft keyboard to perform the basic editing actions: moving the cursor, selecting text, and using the clipboard. The technique is compatible with gesture writing and is suitable for bi-manual text entry. We carried out a user study including several practical tasks to evaluate it. Results showed a gain in performance for small font with respect to the technique currently available on most mobile devices with Android OS.