Paper Reading #2: Hands-On Math: A page-based multi-touch and pen desktop for technical work and problem solving


Reference
Authors:Robert Zeleznik, Andrew Bragdon, Ferdi Adeputra, Hsu-Sheng Ko
Affiliation: Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
Presentation:UIST’10, October 3–6, 2010, New York, New York, USA

Summary

Hypothesis/Contents
This paper presents a multi-touch and pen based system(Hands on Math) which attempts to unify flexible, free-form input of pencil and paper with the computational power of Computer Algebra Systems (CAS) when solving mathematical problems.The interface is a virtual paper that is enhanced to recognize mathematical notations as a means of providing in situ access to CAS functionality.The central hypothesis of the paper was to design Hands on Math to provide more efficient way to learn and work integrating CAS functionality on paper like interface.

Pilot Tests were conducted with the undergradaute students of Brown.They were asked to do the following tasks and as well others actions interesting to them.
  1. Creating and manipulating pages
  2. Performing a back-of-the-envelope calculation
  3. Solving a more complex math expression by performing a multi-step derivation
  4. Graphing an equation and manipulating the graph
  5. Using the PalmPrint to change modes and drawing an annotated diagram in different colors of ink
  6. Web clipping
  7. Manipulating the contents of a page with TAP gesture and page folding
Results
People wanted a better form factor of the system.The virtual paper format felt natural to them. They wanted instructions on how to do gestures and had mixed reviews about them.Solving math was more intuitive and easier than traditional approaches. They took some time to be used to it and were curious on working with more advanced problem sets.

Discussion
The results were convincing to support the hypothesis that indeed the system was an efficient way to learn and work math on a virtual paper UI. I was impressed by the idea and the results. The way the system prevents users from doing stupid mistakes is something I liked about it. It has limited applications with mathematics right now but a more advanced structure of the project can make it a better and widely acclaimed tool for learning. I felt like the minor glitches that were ignored during the implementation seem like could make a difference to results. The awkward positions people had to come up with makes me believe that the system needs a new design as well. Furthermore a development of a portable and a more ergonomic system would actually let users test the true functionality of the system.

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