Freehand Gestural Text Entry for Interactive TV

Users increasingly expect more interactive experiences with TV. Combined with the recent development of freehand gestural interaction enabled by inexpensive sensors, interactive television has the potential to offer a highly usable and engaging experience. However, common interaction tasks such as text input are still challenging with such systems. In this paper, we investigate text entry using freehand gestures captured with a low-cost sensor system. Two virtual keyboard layouts and three selection techniques were designed and evaluated. Results show that a text entry method with dual circle layout and an expanding target selection technique offers ease of use and error tolerance, key features if we are to increase the use and enhance the experience of interactive TV in the living room.