lucid touch microsoft research & mitsubishi research

Touch is a compelling input modality for interactive devices; however, touch input on the small screen of a mobile device is problematic because a user’s fingers occlude the graphical elements he wishes to work with. LucidTouch is a mobile device that addresses this limitation by allowing the user to control the application by touching the back of the device. The key to making this usable is what we call pseudo-transparency: by overlaying an image of the user’s hands onto the screen, we create the illusion of the mobile device itself being semitransparent. This pseudo-transparency allows users to accurately acquire targets while not occluding the screen with their fingers and hand. LucidTouch also supports multi-touch input, allowing users to operate the device simultaneously with all 10 fingers. We present initial study results that indicate that many users found touching on the back to be preferable to touching on the front, due to reduced occlusion, higher precision, and the ability to make multi-finger input.