Seeing is Wheeling: Reading Assistance with a Moving Hilight using a Mouse Wheel

Abstract

Some people follow text with a pen or their finger when reading a paper document in order to keep track of where they are. Physical pointing is awkward when reading on desktop computers and some people highlight the text being read using a mouse dragging operation.

We propose a simple interaction technique Seeing is Wheeling to facilitate the process. The user moves a highlighted area of text back and forth using a mouse wheel. This is much easier than constantly changing the highlighted area using a mouse dragging operation and frees the user from remembering where they are reading.

Demos

Java Swing version (J2RE 1.4 required)

Download

Download and double click the jar file to run the application (Windows)

Bookmarklet version (for IE)

1. Click here to activate Seeing is Wheeling.
2. Highlight text in this document using a mouse dragging operation.
3. Rotate the mouse wheel.
4. Click again to inactivate.

Masatomo Kobayashi told me about bookmarklets. See here for his other bookmarklets

Other materials

Video

PDF

converted from PowerPoint (in Japanese)