Multi-touch trackpads in the wild

In this paper, we aim at better understanding users interaction with trackpads and provide recommendations for creating novel or revisiting existing interactions. To achieve this goal, we conducted a three-steps field study targeted at Apple Macbook's multi-touch trackpads. We collected (1) system preferences of 80 users; (2) low-level interaction data of 11 users and (3) finger chord mappings to multi-touch gestures of 9 users. Our results show that users change few default system preferences; that touch contacts on the trackpad are performed on a limited subsurface and are relatively slow; and that the consistency of user finger chords varies depending on the frequency of a gesture and the number of fingers involved.