The Pie Slider: Combining Advantages of the Real and the Virtual Space

The Pie Segment Slider is a novel parameter control interface combining the advantages of tangible input with the customizability of a graphical interface representation. The physical part of the interface consists of a round touchpad, which serves as an appropriate sensor for manipulating ring-shaped sliders arranged around a virtual object. The novel interface concept allows to shift a substantial amount of interaction task time from task preparation to its exploratory execution. Our user study compared the task performance of the novel interface to a common touchpad-operated GUI and examined the task sequences of both solutions. The results confirm the benefits of exploiting tangible input and proprioception for operating graphical user interface elements.