• Archives of design research
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.61-68
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• 2004

A great variety of handheld device are coming onto the market. Some have advanced features compacted into very small sized hardware. In order to maximize the capability of these devices, we need to understand the characteristics of different input methods and utilize them in a sufficient way. Our study aims to understand characteristics of each device, so that we can design user interfaces more effectively. Two experiments were conducted to compare target pointing performance with a pen and with a hardware key on small displays. In experiment 1, we examined participants' performance of target pointing with both input methods at different target sizes. It was found that pen operation is more erroneous than key based operation when target size is smaller than 5mm, but at a target size of 5mm, the error rate decreased to the same level as for key input. In experiment 2, we examined the effect of the number of targets. The results showed, with a target size of 5mm, the pen could point to targets quicker than with key input, when the distance to the target exeeds a path length of 3 steps.