Advanced personal electronic devices can have small form factors. Exemplary personal electronic devices include but are not limited to tablets and smart phones. Uses of such personal electronic devices involve manipulation of user interface objects on display screens which also have small form factors that complement the design of the personal electronic devices.
Exemplary manipulations that users can perform on personal electronic devices include navigating a hierarchy, selecting a user interface object, adjusting the position, size, and zoom of user interface objects, or otherwise manipulating user interfaces. Exemplary user interface objects include digital images, video, text, icons, control elements such as buttons, and other graphics.
Existing methods for manipulating user interface objects on reduced-size personal electronic devices can be inefficient. Further, existing methods generally provide less precision than is preferable.