Paper Reading #14

Comments:
Comment #1
Comment #2
Reference:
Title: Sensing Foot Gestures from the Pocket
Author: Jeremy Scott, David Dearman, Koji Yatani, and Khai N. Truong
Venue: UIST 2010
Summary:

This paper explains a possible interface for foot-based interactions with a mobile device when the device in one's pocket. There are three axes of rotation with the foot: ankle, heel, and toe. The four experimentation conditions were:

• Dorsiflexion: rotation of the ankle such that the angle between the shin and foot decreases.  
• Plantar flexion: rotation of the ankle such that the angle between the shin and foot increases. 
• Heel rotation: internal and external rotation of the foot and leg with respect to the midline of the body while pivoting the rotation on the heel of the foot. Toe rotation: internal and external rotation of the foot and leg while pivoting the rotation on the toe of the foot.

To capture the test movements, the group used motion capture cameras. 2.3% of the trials were removed from the results. Targets closer to the origin were selected quicker than the ones at the edge of the region. Participants said that heel rotation with external rotation as the easiest method. They used machine learning to recognize the foot gestures. Using a Naive Bayes method, the group was able to identify 10 different foot gestures with 86% accuracy. In the future, they plan to create a real-time application to recognize the foot gestures, and install the application on a mobile device
Discussion:
This is a ridiculous waste of time, in my humblest opinions. I sincerely hope these guys aren't getting paid for this. Foot-based interactions is a horrible idea. How is this remotely practical? I don't see anyone ever using this. Feedback is minimal, and it's just not a natural way to interact with things. Also, they had not created the application in this paper, but just had users select what they were trying to do then do it. This paper was also very long, but the content made it seem even longer. I just couldn't get past that this is just a stupid idea. These people getting paid is like the guys on the show Jackass, except not as good of an idea.