Effects of Grip Curvature and Size of Hand on Comfort for the Unimanual Operation of Handheld Touchscreen Device

摘要

This study aims to investigate the effect of size of a hand and curvature of handheld touchscreen devices oncomfort when unimanually using the devices. By rated subjectively and recording EMG, comfort wasmeasured for the use of three mock-ups of the device with different curvatures; one had flat surface and theothers had curvatures of 400R and 100R for each. During the experiment, tapping, typing and draggingtasks were performed and the participants evaluated comfort subjectively and objectively. A differenceamong curvatures was analyzed as well as a difference among participant groups classified by size of theirpreferred hand. The results indicated that curvature of the handheld touchscreen devices affected neithermuscle activities nor subjective comfort level. Moreover, size of hand was found to affect comfortobjectively measured, but not the one subjectively rated. Overall, this study suggests that comfort measuredsubjectively does not consistent with comfort measured by objective data. Also, users’ hand size may bemore critical factor than curvature of handheld touchscreen determining comfort of touch screen use.