Searching Names in Contact List by Three Touch-Screen Gestures

Abstract

We compared three list scrolling gestures including sliding to scroll, moving a regular scrollbar, and scrolling through alphabetic index, in a name locating task on mobile phone. We found that scrolling through alphabetic index was the fastest independent of target locations. Moreover. for near-reaching targets RT was shorter for sliding to scroll than moving scrollbar, but it took sliding longer than moving scrollbar for far-reaching targets. Gesture evaluation scores of alphabetic index increased and those of sliding to scroll decreased over time. The different pre- and post-task rating patterns for gestures are due to their differential fatigue and emotional changes. The present study provides insights into users’ mental models for three list scrolling gestures and implications for future gesture design.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bingxin Li

Bingxin Li received the Ph.D degree in psychology from the University of Glasgow, UK, in 2019. She is currently a post-doc fellow in engineering psychology and cognitive ergonomics at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. Her research interests include human-centered design that aims to promote user experience.

Zheng Wei

Zheng Wei received the B.S. degree from Hebei University. Now she is a Ph.D candidate at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her research interests include human factor engineering and attentional selection.

Tong Yang

Tong Yang received the Ph.D. and BA degree in Psychology from Zhejiang University in 2018. Currently, he is working in UX Design Department, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. His research interests include cognitive ergonomics, gesture interaction and user experience.

Yanfang Liu

Yanfang Liu received the Ph.D. degree in psychology from the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999. Currently, she is working in UX Design Department, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. Her research interests include cognitive ergonomics and human-centered design.

Feng Du

Feng Du received his Ph.D in psychology from Washington University in St. Louis, US, in 2010. He is currently a Professor at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. His research interests include cognitive ergonomics, and cognitive and neural mechanism of attention, working memory and executive control.