Software Support for Multitouch Interaction: The End-User Programming Perspective

The hardware development of the past years favored the widespread diffusion of multitouch devices (such as smartphones, tablets, and interactive tabletops) to such an extent that a wide variety of users are now exploiting them to perform different activities on a daily basis. In the heterogeneous and manifold context of modern computation, it is impossible to predict, at design time, all the possible configurations of such technologies, and especially the way users will be willing to interact with them. Therefore, empowering end users with tools for developing multitouch interaction is a promising step toward the materialization of ubiquitous computing. The aim of this survey is to frame the state of the art of existing multitouch software development tools from an end-user programming (EUP) perspective.