• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.63 no.6
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• pp.232-236
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• 2020

Background: Children today get access to smartphones at an early age. However, their ability to use mobile apps has not yet been studied in detail. Purpose: This study aimed to assess the ability of children aged 2-8 years to perform touchscreen gestures and follow prompting techniques, i.e., ways apps provide instructions on how to use them. Methods: We developed one mobile app to test the ability of children to perform various touchscreen gestures and another mobile app to test their ability to follow various prompting techniques. We used these apps in this study of 90 children in a kindergarten and a primary school in New Delhi in July 2019. We noted the touchscreen gestures that the children could perform and the most sophisticated prompting technique that they could follow. Results: Two- and 3-year-old children could not follow any prompting technique and only a minority (27%) could tap the touchscreen at an intended place. Four- to 6-year-old children could perform simple gestures like a tap and slide (57%) and follow instructions provided through animation (63%). Seven- and 8-year-old children could perform more sophisticated gestures like dragging and dropping (30%) and follow instructions provided in audio and video formats (34%). We observed a significant difference between the number of touchscreen gestures that the children could perform and the number of prompting techniques that they could follow (F=544.0407, P<0.05). No significant difference was observed in the performance of female versus male children (P>0.05). Conclusion: Children gradually learn to use mobile apps beginning at 2 years of age. They become comfortable performing single-finger gestures and following nontextual prompting techniques by 8 years of age. We recommend that these results be considered in the development of mobile apps for children.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.589-595
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• 2011

Objective: This study compares two visual occlusion methods for the evaluation of in-vehicle interfaces. Background: Visual occlusion is a visual demand measuring technique which uses periodic vision/occlusion cycle to simulate a driving(or mobile) environment. It has been widely used for the evaluation of in-vehicle interfaces. There are two major implementation methods for this technique: (1) occlusion using PLATO(portable liquid crystal apparatus for tachistoscopic occlusion) goggles; (2) occlusion using a software application on a touchscreen device. Method: An experiment was conducted to examine the visual demand of an in-vehicle interface prototype using the goggle-based and the touchscreen-based occlusion methods. Address input and radio tuning tasks were evaluated in the experiment. Results: The results showed that, for the radio tuning task, there were no significant differences in total shutter open time and resumability ratio between the two occlusionconditions. However, it took longer for the participants to input addresses with the touchscreen-based occlusion. Conclusion & Application: The results suggest that touchscreen-based method could be used as an alternative to traditional, gogglebased visual occlusion especially in less demanding visual tasks such as radio tuning.

• International journal of advanced smart convergence
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.143-148
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• 2021

Smartphones have been widely used for various purposes and stay connected with people at all times. However, the use of such touchscreen devices can be physically restricted depending on users' context where only one hand is available to interact with the device. Even major smartphone manufacturers (e.g., Apple, Samsung) offer one handed mode, they still lack functions in the third-party applications, and the process is also complicated. We propose OverIT, a system that enables users to customize interfaces by adding new buttons on an interactive overlay which can be positioned anywhere on the touchscreen where each button serves the same functionality as an existing one. It is designed to support users to map a certain button event freely and easily to a newly created button by performing a demonstration of a button tap. We expect our system to improve the overall user experience of one-handed interaction with touchscreen devices.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.17-28
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• 2019

The touchscreen device is now commonly found in the form of mobile phones, tablet PCs, and other devices. Varied physical and visual experiences can be experienced through touchscreens. This study intended to explore how the physical and visual experiences provided by the touchscreen would affect people through their existing associations of behavior-attitude. Previous studies have found that certain behaviors affect attitudes. In particular, the approach-avoidance behavior has been noted to influence both social and personal attitudes. It was thus deemed necessary to ascertain the approach-avoidance effect exerted by touchscreens on the attitudes of users as the technology is widely used today. Experiment 1 provided an approach-avoidance experience via a touchscreen and demonstrated that touchscreen-based approach-avoidance dragging behavior on the touchscreen can affect a user's preference and purchase intent. It was found that a product that had been approached showed both higher preference and higher purchase intent than a product that had been avoided. Experiment 2 investigated whether a similar effect would occur when only the visual experience of approach-avoidance was provided. The outcome proved that products that had been visually approached had higher scores than products that had been avoided, both in terms of preference and purchase intent. The movement of the arm on the touchscreen (Experiment 1) and the visual perception of the approach-avoidance experience (Experiment 2) were both shown to influence participants' attitudes toward products. The results of this study suggest that the behavior and perception of users may be an important factor in designing touchscreen interfaces for online shopping.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.57-64
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• 2020

We sought to compare upper extremity muscle activity between handwriting on paper and touchscreen with dominant and non-dominant hands in younger adults (age 23.90±1.12) and the elderly (age 75.55±5.76). Muscle activity (percent of maximum voluntary contraction) in the biceps brachii muscle, triceps brachii muscle, flexor carpi ulnaris muscle, and extensor carpi ulnaris muscle was measured using an electromyography device. As a result, our data indicate that muscle activity is lower in younger adults than the elderly. Besides, muscle activity is lower in the dominant versus non-dominant hand, and lower when writing using a touchscreen than on paper. These results can be used to support recommending touchscreens in the elderly. Also, they can be used as baseline data for comparing the performance of non-paretic side and paretic side in patients relative to the central nervous system.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.291-298
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• 2012

Objective: The aim of this study is to predict Korean text entry on touchscreens using ACT-R cognitive architecture. Background: Touchscreen application in devices such as satellite navigation devices, PDAs, mobile phones, etc. has been increasing, and the market size is expanding. Accordingly, there is an increasing interest to develop and evaluate the interface to enhance the user experience and increase satisfaction in the touchscreen environment. Method: In this study, Korean text entry performance in the touchscreen environment was analyzed using ACT-R. The ACT-R model considering the characteristics of the Korean language which is composed of vowels and consonants was established. Further, this study analyzed if the prediction of Korean text entry is possible through the ACT-R cognitive model. Results: In the analysis results, no significant difference on performance time between model prediction and empirical data was found. Conclusion: The proposed model can predict the accurate physical movement time as well as cognitive processing time. Application: This study is useful in conducting model-based evaluation on the text entry interface of the touchscreen and enabled quantitative and effective evaluation on the diverse types of Korean text input interfaces through the cognitive models.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.109-117
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• 2008

Compared to the existing PC which uses a mouse and a keyboard, the touchscreen-based portable PC allows the user to use fingers, requiring new operation methods. However, current touchscreen-based web browser operations in many cases involve merely having fingers move simply like a mouse and click, or not corresponding well to the user's sensitivity and the structure of one's index finger, making itself difficult to be used during walking. Therefore, the goal of this study is to develop finger gestures which facilitate the interaction between the interface and the user, and make the operation easier. First, based on the frequency of usage in the web browser and preference, top eight functions were extracted. Then, the users' structural knowledge was visualized through sketch maps, and the finger gestures which were applicable in touchscreens were derived through the Meaning in Mediated Action method. For the front/back page, and up/down scroll functions, directional gestures were derived, and for the window closure, refresh, home and print functions, letter-type and icon-type gestures were drawn. A validation experiment was performed to compare the performance between existing operation methods and the proposed one in terms of execution time, error rate, and preference, and as a result, directional gestures and letter-type gestures showed better performance than the existing methods. These results suggest that not only during the operation of touchscreen-based web browser in portable PC but also during the operation of telematics-related functions in automobile, PDA and so on, the new gestures can be used to make operation easier and faster.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.686-695
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• 2020

The present study evaluated the manual dexterity and usability of conductive gloves when operating touchscreen devices in the cold. Twelve male subjects (23.3±1.5 years in age) participated in three experimental conditions: no gloves, fabric conductive and lambskin conductive gloves. Manual dexterity was tested using both Purdue Pegboard (PP) and ASTM dexterity tests at an air temperature of 5℃ and air humidity of 30%RH. Glove usability was tested through the following touchscreen tests: tap, double tap, long tab, drag, flick, and multi-touch. The results showed that manual dexterity according to the PP (2.5 mm of a pin diameter) and ASTM tests (8 mm of a stick diameter) was worse for the two glove conditions than for the no glove condition (p<.005). PP dexterity was better for the fabric glove condition than for the lambskin glove condition (p<.05); however, there was no difference in ASTM dexterity between the two glove conditions. Hand and finger skin temperatures were higher for the glove conditions than the bare hand condition (p<.05), with no differences between the two glove conditions. The touchscreen usability was the best for the no glove condition, followed by fabric gloves (p<.05). Wearing either fabric or lambskin gloves diminishes hand dexterity while maintaining hand and finger temperatures at higher levels. For improved hand dexterity in dealing with small numbers, letters on a touchscreen in cold environments, we recommend wearing fabric conductive gloves rather than lambskin conductive gloves.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.68-76
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• 2010

Touch-enabled technology is increasingly being accepted as a main communication interface between human and computers. However, conventional touchscreen technologies, such as resistive overlay, capacitive overlay, and SAW(Surface Acoustic Wave), are not cost-effective for large screens. As an alternative to the conventional methods, we introduce a newly emerging method, an optical imaging touchscreen which is much simpler and more cost-effective. Despite its attractive benefits, optical imaging touchscreen has to overcome some problems, such as heavy computational complexity, intermittent ghost points, and over-sensitivity, to be commercially used. Therefore, we designed a hardware controller for signal processing and multi-coordinate computation, and proposed Infrared-blocked DA(Dark Area) manipulation as a solution. While the entire optical touch control took 34ms with a 32-bit microprocessor, the designed hardware controller can manage 2 valid coordinates at 200fps and also reduce energy consumption of infrared diodes from 1.8Wh to 0.0072Wh.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.319-325
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• 2018

Background: Prolonged neck flexion during smartphone use is known as a factor of neck pain and alteration of neck muscle activity. Studies on the effects of shoulder taping on neck discomfort and neck muscle responses while texting on a smartphone are still lacking. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of shoulder taping on neck discomfort using a numerical rating scale, and neck muscle activity and fatigue using a surface electromyography during a texting task on a touchscreen smartphone. Methods: Twenty-five healthy adolescents used the dominant hand to perform a 30-minute texting task using a touchscreen smartphone at two separate times under one of the following two conditions: taping across the upper trapezius muscle and no taping. Neck discomfort, normalized root mean square, and normalized median frequency slopes for upper trapezius, cervical erector spinae, and sternocleidomastoid muscles were recorded. Results: The results revealed that shoulder taping provided significantly lower neck discomfort than no taping (p < 0.001). However, shoulder taping did not significantly alter normalized root mean square and normalized median frequency slope values of all muscles when compared with no taping controls. Conclusion: Shoulder taping reduces neck discomfort but does not affect neck muscle activity and fatigue while texting on a touchscreen smartphone.