The authors attempt to combine the low-attention and vision-free interactions possible with physical buttons with the flexibility of a touchscreen display. They create an interface layer that consists of a deformable surface on top of a display screen. For their user study they measured the amount of glances required to make a button touch using four different interfaces, a flat surface, physical buttons, their system with the button sticking out, and sunken in. The results showed that their system in both configurations required less glances than the physical buttons or a flat surface.
Thoughts
Physical buttons are irreplaceable in my opinion. I can't imagine ever giving up my plastic button keyboard for touch pad version. I liken their system to the buttons on some cheap remote controls, a sheet of plastic with bumps for buttons. The problem was never finding the buttons but getting it to register clicks. Anyway, the methods of created physical buttons on top of a display is a great idea however it will never be widely used if it uses a projector and camera to sense input because the setup is just too large.
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