Junhyeok Kim

Junhyeok Kim

PhD Candidate in HCI at University of Waterloo

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A list of all the posts and pages found on the site. For you robots out there, there is an XML version available for digesting as well.

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Thumbs-Up: 3D Spatial Thumb-Reachable Space for One-Handed Thumb Interaction on Smartphones

Published in SUI 2016, 2016

People very often use mobile devices with one hand to free the second hand for other tasks. In such cases, the thumb of the hand holding the device is the only available input finger, making multi-touch interactions impossible. Complicating interaction further, the screen area that can be reached with the thumb while holding the device is limited, which makes distant on-screen areas inaccessible. Motivated by emerging portable object tracking technologies, we explore how spatial mid-air thumb-gestures could potentially be used in combination with on-screen touch input to facilitate one-handed interaction. From a user study we identify the 3D thumb-reachable space when holding a smartphone. We call this space “Thumbs-Up”. This space extends up to 74 mm above the screen, making it possible to create interactions for the thumb of the hand holding the smartphone. We furthermore demonstrate how such Thumbs-Up techniques, when combined with on-screen interaction, can extend the input vocabulary in one-handed situations.

Recommended citation: Hasan, K., Kim, J., Ahlström, D., & Irani, P. (2016). Thumbs-up: 3D spatial thumb-reachable space for one-handed thumb interaction on smartphones. SUI 2016 - Proceedings of the 2016 Symposium on Spatial User Interaction. https://doi.org/10.1145/2983310.2985755
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Toward a Pool of Text-Entry Input Techniques

Published in CHI 2017 Workshop on Ubiquitous Text Interaction, 2017

Several text-entry techniques already exist, be it as research prototypes or commercial products. The number of text-entry input techniques will likely continue to increase in order to explore and leverage ubiquitous text-entry tasks with new technologies such as incoming wearable devices. In this era of increasing input techniques, we propose the creation of a pool of techniques, evaluated within a common experimental protocol, so that future work can (1) have a standardized set of baselines, and (2) easily contribute to the expansion of this pool of techniques. The contributions of this work are threefold. First, this work will unify the evaluation of text-entry techniques, which are difficult to compare in the current state of how research is done. Second, this work will set a standard regarding how future text-entry techniques will be evaluated. Third, future text-entry input techniques can be added to the pool of existing techniques.

Recommended citation: Junhyeok Kim, William Delamare, Yumiko Sakamoto, Tony Havelka, and Pourang Irani. Toward a Pool of Text-Entry Input Techniques. In Workshops of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’17 EA), 2017
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Challenges Identified During Early Prototyping of a Ubiquitous Text-Entry System

Published in CHI 2017 Workshop on Ubiquitous Text Interaction, 2017

Ubiquitous text-entry, i.e. where text-entry can take place anywhere, during different contexts, requires a novel paradigm than what has been previously proposed for designing text-entry systems. In this paper, we report on our experience designing and implementing a ubiquitous text-entry system, aimed at facilitating text-input with any wearable device, including a smart-watch or a head-worn display. We report on the major issues encountered, including our approach for solving these. We present these concerns to raise the discussion level of ubiquitous text-entry systems from the lab to practice.

Recommended citation: Junhyeok Kim, William Delamare, Yumiko Sakamoto, Tony Havelka, and Pourang Irani. Challenges Identified During Early Prototyping of a Ubiquitous Text-Entry System. In Workshops of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’17 EA), 2017
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AirPanes: Two-Handed Around-Device Interaction for Pane Switching on Smartphones

Published in CHI 2017, 2017

In recent years, around device input has emerged as a complement to standard touch input, albeit in limited tasks and contexts, such as for item selection or map navigation. We push the boundaries for around device interactions to facilitate an entire smartphone application: browsing through large information lists to make a decision. To this end, we present AirPanes, a novel technique that allows two-handed in-air interactions, conjointly with touch input to perform analytic tasks, such as making a purchase decision. AirPanes resolves the inefficiencies of having to switch between multiple views or panes in common smartphone applications. We explore the design factors that make AirPanes efficient. In a controlled study, we find that AirPanes is on average 50% more efficient that standard touch input for an analytic task. We offer recommendations for implementing AirPanes in a broad range of applications.

Recommended citation: Hasan, K., Ahlström, D., Kim, J., & Irani, P. (2017). AirPanes: Two-handed around-device interaction for pane switching on smartphones. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings, 2017-May. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3026029
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ThumbText: Text Entry for Wearable Devices Using a Miniature Ring

Published in Graphics Interface 2018, 2018

Users can benefit from using an auxiliary peripheral that could mitigate many concerns with direct text entry on wearable devices. We introduce ThumbText, a thumb-operated text entry approach for a ring-sized touch surface. Through a multi-part exploration, we first identify a suitable discretization of the miniature touch surface for thumb input. We then design a number of two-step selection techniques for supporting the input of at least 28 characters. On a miniature touch surface, we find that a continuous touch-slide-lift selection technique in a 2×3 grid discretization offers improved performance gains over other selection methods. Finally, we evaluate ThumbText against techniques also designed for wearable devices and find that ThumbText allows for higher text entry rates than SwipeBoard and H4-Writer.

Recommended citation: Kim, J., Delamare, W., & Irani, P. (2018). ThumbText: Text entry for wearable devices using a miniature ring. Proceedings - Graphics Interface, 2018-May. https://doi.org/10.20380/GI2018.04
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Text-entry on a miniature peripheral for wearable devices

Published in Masters Thesis, University of Manitoba, 2018

Users can benefit from using an auxiliary peripheral that could mitigate many concerns with direct text-entry on wearable devices. I introduce ThumbText, a thumb-operated text-entry approach for a ring-sized touch surface. Through a multi-part exploration, I first identify a suitable discretization of the miniature touch surface for thumb input. I then design a number of two-step selection techniques for supporting the input of at least 28 characters. On a miniature touch surface, I find that a continuous touch-slide-lift selection technique in a 2×3 grid discretization offers improved performance gains over other selection methods. Finally, I evaluate ThumbText against techniques also designed for wearable devices and find that ThumbText (11.41 words-per-minute) allows for higher text-entry rates than SwipeBoard (6.49 words-per-minute) and H4-Writer (6.83 words-per-minute). I finally demonstrate that with ThumbText, users can benefit from a unique text-entry technique that transfers well across different wearable displays, such as smartwatches and head-worn displays.

Recommended citation: Kim, J. (2018). Text-entry on a miniature peripheral for wearable devices (Masters thesis). University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
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Applying a Pneumatic Interface to Intervene with Rapid Eating Behaviour

Published in ITCH 2019: Information Technology and Communications in Health, 2019

Higher eating rates are positively correlate with obesity. In this paper, we propose the design of a new eating utensil that can reduce eating rate by interfering with eater’s ability to eat quickly. This utensil can change its rigidity and shape by deflating itself to interfere with eating. In this study, a low fidelity proof-of-concept prototype device has been designed to provide physical resistance in order to help people reduce their eating rate. The proposed prototype could be used to demonstrate the feasibility of applying a pneumatically actuated shape-changing interface to embed physical resistance into an eating utensil.

Recommended citation: Zhang, Z., Kim, J., Sakamoto, Y., Han, T., & Irani, P. (2019). Applying a Pneumatic Interface to Intervene with Rapid Eating Behaviour. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 257, 513-519. https://doi.org/10.3233/978-1-61499-951-5-513
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PinchList: Leveraging Pinch Gestures for Hierarchical List Navigation on Smartphones

Published in CHI 2019, 2019

Intensive exploration and navigation of hierarchical lists on smartphones can be tedious and time-consuming as it often requires users to frequently switch between multiple views. To overcome this limitation, we present PinchList, a novel interaction design that leverages pinch gestures to support seamless exploration of multi-level list items in hierarchical views. With PinchList, sub-lists are accessed with a pinch-out gesture whereas a pinch-in gesture navigates back to the previous level. Additionally, pinch and flick gestures are used to navigate lists consisting of more than two levels. We conduct a user study to refine the design parameters of PinchList such as a suitable item size, and quantitatively evaluate the target acquisition performance using pinch-in/out gestures in both scrolling and non-scrolling conditions. In a second study, we compare the performance of PinchList in a hierarchal navigation task with two commonly used touch interfaces for list browsing: pagination and expand-and-collapse interfaces. The results reveal that PinchList is significantly faster than other two interfaces in accessing items located in hierarchical list views. Finally, we demonstrate that PinchList enables a host of novel applications in list-based interaction.

Recommended citation: Han, T., Liu, J., Hasan, K., Fan, M., Kim, J., Li, J., Fan, X., Tian, F., Lank, E., & Irani, P. (2019). Pinchlist: Leveraging pinch gestures for hierarchical list navigation on smartphones. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300731
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Interacting with Autostereograms

Published in MobileHCI 2019, 2019

Autostereograms are 2D images that can reveal 3D content when viewed with a specific eye convergence, without using extra-apparatus. We contribute to autostereogram studies from an HCI perspective. We explore touch inputs and output design options when interacting with autostereograms on smartphones. We found that an interactive help (i.e. to control the autostereogram stereo-separation), a color-based feedback (i.e. highlight of the screen), and a direct touch input can provide support for faster and more accurate interaction than a static help (i.e. static dots indicating the stereo-separation), an animated feedback (i.e., a ‘pressed’ effect), and an indirect input. In addition, results reveal that participants learn to perceive smaller and smaller autostereogram content faster with practice. This learning effect transfers across display devices (smartphone to desktop screen).

Recommended citation: Delamare, W., Kim, J., Harada, D., Irani, P., & Ren, X. (2019). Interacting with Autostereograms. Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1145/3338286.3340141
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“Transport Me Away”: Fostering Flow in Open Offices through Virtual Reality

Published in CHI 2020, 2020

Open offices are cost-effective and continue to be popular. However, research shows that these environments, brimming with distractions and sensory overload, frequently hamper productivity. Our research investigates the use of virtual reality (VR) to mitigate distractions in an open office setting and improve one’s ability to be in flow. In a lab study, 35 participants performed visual programming tasks in four combinations of physical (open or closed office) and virtual environments (beach or virtual office). While participants both preferred and were in flow more in a closed office without VR, in an open office, the VR environments outperformed the no VR condition in all measures of flow, performance, and preference. Especially considering the recent rapid advancements in VR, our findings illustrate the potential VR has to improve flow and satisfaction in open offices.

Recommended citation: Ruvimova, A., Kim, J., Fritz, T., Hancock, M., & Shepherd, D. C. (2020). “Transport Me Away”: Fostering Flow in Open Offices through Virtual Reality. Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376724
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Investigating Digital, Tangible, and Paper-Based Room Design at a Small Scale

Published in Graphics Interface 2025, 2025

Miniature representations, like CAD and blueprints, are useful for designing a larger physical space. While experts are trained to use these methods, non-experts often lack this training. Nonetheless, non-experts can benefit from designing with miniature representations , yet their interactions with these tools are not well understood. In our work, we observed participants designing two rooms using three tools: an online planner, pen and paper, and Lego. We collected and analyzed data from the Desirability Toolkit, a semi-structured interview, and observations of their design sessions. Our findings suggest that participants found each tool engaging and satisfying for different reasons, but paper more empowering and Lego more familiar, efficient, and unconventional. Participants also suggested that these tools had value at different design stages. We also identified that participants often had difficulty scaling objects to match realistic expectations in the paper and Lego miniature representations.

Recommended citation: Kim, J., & Hancock, M. (2025). Investigating Digital, Tangible, and Paper-Based Room Design at a Small Scale. Graphics Interface 2025 (GI ’25), https://doi.org/10.1145/3769872.3769879
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