The most common input technologies used to interact with touch screens are finger and stylus. Today, people use mobile devices on a daily basis in different conditions of mobility and encumbrance. This research investigates a usability evaluation of stylus and finger during two levels of mobility (standing and walking), four levels of encumbrance (both hands busy, dominant hand busy, non-dominant hand busy, and both hands available), and two types of gestures (tapping and dragging). We measured the usability based on movement time, error rate, and user satisfaction. The experiments show a negative effect of encumbrance and mobility for both stylus and finger. The interaction with stylus takes more time with encumbrance than that of finger; furthermore, the error rate for stylus is greater than finger. Finally, a survey conducted for user satisfaction showed that the user prefers to interact with stylus when both hands are available, and the encumbrance affects stylus more than finger.
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