The nudging technique: input method without fine-grained pointing by pushing a segment

Abstract

The Nudging Technique is a new manipulation paradigm for GUIs. With traditional techniques, the user sometimes has to perform a fine-grained operation (e.g., pointing at the edge of a window to resize). When the user makes a mistake in the pointing, problems may arise such as an accidental switching of the foreground window. The nudging technique relieves the user from the fine pointing before dragging; the user just moves the cursor to a target then pushes it. Visual and acoustic feedbacks also help the user's operation. We describe two application examples: window resizing and spreadsheet cell resizing systems.