Augmenting Interactivity of Touch Pad by Adding Isometric Rate Control

In this paper, we present FloatingPad, a touch pad based device with better scrolling feature and more interaction styles than a traditional touch pad. When we interact with a real object like a picture or a book, we manipulate on the object, and we also move, rotate, and flip the object. We applied this idea into a touch pad. In FloatingPad, the touch pad is not fixed to the device. It is floating on the device; it can be slid on the device. Therefore a user can have additional degree of freedom of input by shifting and rotating the touch pad while having the traditional touch pad input. By using this technique, the interactivity of the touch pad can be augmented, and better scrolling feature can be provided by reducing clutching occurs on the position scrolling devices by using the movement of the touch pad as rate control. We implemented the prototype device and conducted a user study with three applications developed for FloatingPad.