Investigating the Effect of Orientation and Visual Style on Touchscreen Slider Performance

Sliders are one of the most fundamental components usedin touchscreen user interfaces (UIs). When entering datausing a slider, errors occur due e.g. to visual perception,resulting in inputs not matching what is intended by the user.However, it is unclear if the errors occur uniformly acrossthe full range of the slider or if there are systematic offsets.We conducted a study to assess the errors occurring whenentering values with horizontal and vertical sliders as wellas two common visual styles. Our results reveal significanteffects of slider orientation and style on the precision of theentered values. Furthermore, we identify systematic offsetsthat depend on the visual style and the target value. As theerrors are partially systematic, they can be compensated toimprove users’ precision. Our findings provide UI designerswith data to optimize user experiences in the wide varietyof application areas where slider based touchscreen input isused.