Paper Reading # 5: A Framework for Robust and Flexible Handling of Inputs with Uncertainty

Reference Information: A Framework for Robust and Flexible Handling of Inputs with Uncertainty by Julia Schwarz, Scott E. Hudson, Jennifer Mankoff, and Andrew D. Wilson.
UIST 2010 New York, New York. 

Author Bios: Julia Schwarz is pursuing a PhD at Carnegie Mellon University.

Scott Hudson earned a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Colorado. He is currently a Professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institue at Carnegie Mellon University.

Steven M. Drucker is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research.

Jennifer Mankoff earned her PhD in Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

Andrew Wilson earned a Bachelor's degree from Cornell University and both his Master's and PhD from the MIT Media Lab. He is now a Senior Researcher for Microsoft.


Summary

• Hypothesis: Handling uncertain inputs, such as approximations via pen/touch, well will lead to better human computer interactions. 
• Methods: Six case studies were conducted to test the framework.
• Results: Overall, the studies showed that the framework was flexible, could interpret multiple inputs, and could handle such inputs robustly. 
• Contents: This paper tells of a lack of correct handling of uncertain input. It also compares conventional input with uncertain input. After detailing their framework, the authors explain the six case studies. The first three case studies focused on improvement of touch interaction through smart window resizing, ambiguous and remote sliders, and tiny buttons. Case studies four and five were for smarter text entry, while the final study looked into an improved GUI for the motor-impaired. Below is a picture of touch input being handled by the framework: 

Discussion
Though I do think a flexible handling of inputs is important, I did not find this paper to be particularly appealing. It was interesting to note, however, that the authors opted to include a test involving GUI for the motor-impaired. I think that in today's society, disabilities are too often overlooked and shrugged off. To me, developing tools for those with impairments can help create a better understanding of disabilities. That in turn would allow better technologies to be made with the purpose of reducing or even eliminating the disabilities.