One of the pervasive challenges in mobile interaction is decreasing the visual demand of interfaces towards eyes-free interaction. In this paper, we focus on the unique affordances of the human ear to support one-handed and eyes-free mobile interaction. We present EarPut, a novel interface concept and hardware prototype, which unobtrusively augments a variety of accessories that are worn behind the ear (e.g. headsets or glasses) to instrument the human ear as an interactive surface. The contribution of this paper is three-fold. We contribute (i) results from a controlled experiment with 27 participants, providing empirical evidence that people are able to target salient regions on their ear effectively and precisely, (ii) a first, systematically derived design space for ear-based interaction and (iii) a set of proof of concept EarPut applications that leverage on the design space and embrace mobile media navigation, mobile gaming and smart home interaction.
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Media/Press Coverage
- (10.2013) http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?articleId=1275146
- (6.2013) http://www.nngroup.com/articles/human-body-touch-input/
- (6.2013) http://contorra.ru/ru/yakob-nilsen-chelovecheskoe-telo-kak-zamena-tachskrina-chast-1-uho-kak-ustroystvo-vvoda
People
- Dr. Roman Lissermann
- Dr. Jochen Huber
- Prof. Dr. Aristotelis Hadjakos
- Prof. Suranga Nanayakkara, PhD
- Max Mühlhäuser
Students
- Martin Schmitz
- Eric Brüggemann
- Marcel Dostal
- Mohit Makhija
- Ilja Schwarz
