The use of touch-sensitive surfaces as input devices for computers and other electronic computing devices has increased significantly in recent years. Exemplary touch-sensitive surfaces include touch pads and touch screen displays. Such surfaces are widely used to manipulate user interface objects on a display.
Exemplary manipulations include using virtual sliders and similar user interface objects to select or input data, such as numerical values. A user may need to perform such manipulations on slider user interface objects in, for example, a spreadsheet application (e.g., Numbers from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.).
But existing methods for inputting data using virtual sliders are cumbersome and inefficient. For example, it can be difficult to select values finely using a slider, especially when the range of values corresponding to the slider is large and/or the slider user interface object is small. As a result, fine value selection using sliders is tedious and creates a significant cognitive burden on a user. In addition, existing methods take longer than necessary, thereby wasting energy. This latter consideration is particularly important in battery-operated devices.