Mobile Pen and Paper Interaction

Although smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices become increasingly popular, pen and paper continue to play an important role in mobile settings, such as note taking or creative discussions. However, information on paper documents remains static and usage practices involving sharing, researching, linking or in any other way digitally processing information on paper are hindered by the gap between the digital and physical worlds. A considerable body of research has leveraged digital pen technology in order to overcome this problem with respect to static settings, however, systematically neglecting the mobile domain. Only recently, several approaches began exploring the mobile domain and developing initial insights into mobile pen-and-paper interaction (mPPI), e.g., to publish digital sketches, [Cowan et al., 2011], link paper and digital artifacts, [Pietrzak et al., 2012] or compose music, [Tsandilas, 2012]. However, applications designed to integrate the most common mobile tools pen, paper and mobile devices, thereby combining the benefits of both worlds in a hybrid mPPI ensemble, are hindered by the lack of supporting infrastructures and limited theoretical understanding of interaction design in the domain. This thesis advances the field by contributing a novel infrastructural approach toward supporting mPPI. It allows applications employing digital pen technology in controlling interactive functionality while preserving mobile characteristics of pen and paper. In addition, it contributes a conceptual framework of user interaction in the domain suiting to serve as basis for novel mPPI toolkits. Such toolkits ease development of mPPI solutions by focusing on expressing interaction rather than designing user interfaces by means of rigid widget sets. As such, they provide the link between infrastructure and interaction in the domain. Lastly, this thesis presents a novel, empirically substantiated theory of interaction in hybrid mPPI ensembles. This theory informs interaction design of mPPI, ultimately allowing to develop compelling and engaging interactive systems employing this modality