Investigation to Line-Based Techniques for Multi-target Selection

This paper presents three selection techniques (called Rubber-lingsweep, Line-string and Coupling-with-pressure) to enhance multi-target acquisition in GUIs and to overcome the drawback of the standard rubber-band box technique, i.e., the limitation of not being able to select an irregular layout of targets. Rubber-line-sweep utilizes a rubber-band line to select targets by “sweeping” them. Line-string employs a line stroke to “string” targets together and select them. Coupling-with-pressure couples these two techniques with pressure as a switch mode. Experiments were conducted to compare these techniques with the standard Rubber-band box, which used a two-dimensional grid which could include varied target sizes, distances and target layouts, and which is applied by using pens as input devices. Experimental results indicate that Rubber-line-sweep, Line-string and Coupling-with-pressure show significant advantages for targets with irregular layouts. Taking performance and subjective ratings together, Coupling-with-pressure outperforms the other three techniques.