Trace select: acquiring remote targets with gesture guides generated from glyphs

When selecting targets in a Smart TV service, the user is frequently required to select remote targets such as menu items, but is unable to touch the targets directly or use a mouse. Solutions include rapid selection techniques using gesture guides. However, such techniques create difficulties, in that they tend to hide the original information. This study proposes a novel technique for selecting remote targets, referred to as Trace Select, which dynamically generates gesture guides from text target characters. The guides do not conceal the original targets. As a result, the guides can be continuously displayed. The technique does not require immediate activation of the gesture-guide displays, and users can identify and draw the gesture of the desired target at any time. Experiments show that Trace Select outperforms both cursor-based selection enhanced by acceleration and conventional activation-required gestural selection.