Foot Controls: Riding the Pedal

Abstract

Abstract:The two predominant scenarios for accidentally tripping a foot control are stepping into the foot control and onto the pedal, i.e., "stepping contact;" and keeping one foot on or just above the pedal at all times, i.e., "riding the pedal." This study shows that the various designs used to minimize "stepping contact" exacerbate inadvertent activation by "riding the pedal."

TicTacToes: Assessing Toe Movements as an Input Modality

“…Further examples include the ear [84], the mouth [26,86], and the face [66], as well as interpreting blow gestures [10,82] or combinations of multiple body parts [24,64]. As the most related area of such hands-free body-centric interfaces, foot-based interaction techniques have a long tradition in the operation of industrial machinery [3,4,15,50,77]. Consequently, the HCI community has explored such foot-based interfaces for various use cases.…”

“…Research investigated foot-based interaction techniques in different postures, such as seated [21,99], standing [88], and walking [93,106]. Such foot-based interfaces have been used as input modalities for desktop [92] or mobile [60] applications or to operate a smartphone in the user's pocket [4,22,30]. Pakkanen and Raisamo [76] compared hand-and foot-based operation of a trackball for spatial tasks and found accuracy and efficiency suitable for secondary tasks.…”

Cloudbits

“…Foot-based input has a long history in operating industry machines [Barnes, Hardaway, and Podolsky, 1942;Barnett, 2009;Corlett and Bishop, 1975;Kroemer, 1971;Pearson and Weiser, 1986] and also appeared early as a possible solution in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI): In 1986 Douglas Engelbart gave a famous presentation on the basic concepts of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and the mouse as an input modality, which would later go down in history as The Mother of All Demos [Engelbart and English, 1968]. One year before, Engelbart's team also worked on other input modalities: English, Engelbart, and Berman [1967] presented a system using knee and foot control for text selection.…”

“…For example, foot controls have been used to increase the input space for desktop [Silva and Bowman, 2009] or mobile [Lv, S. Feng, et al, 2014] games or to operate a smartphone in the pocket of the user [Barnett, 2009;M. Fan et al, 2017;Han et al, 2011].…”