Exploring new window manipulation techniques

Moving and resizing desktop windows are frequently performed but largely unexplored interaction tasks. The standard title bar and border dragging techniques used for window manipulation have not changed much over the years. We studied three new methods to move and resize windows. The new methods are based on proxy and goal-crossing techniques to eliminate the need of long cursor movements and acquiring narrow window borders. Instead, moving and resizing actions are performed by manipulating proxy objects close to the cursor and by sweeping cursor motions across window borders. We compared these techniques with the standard techniques. The results indicate that further investigations and redesigns of window manipulation techniques are worthwhile: all new techniques were faster than the standard techniques, with task completion times improving more than 50% in some cases. Also, the new resizing techniques were found to be less error-prone than the traditional click-and-drag method.