Currently, touch is the dominant input technique for the design of interactions with rigid handheld devices. It is reasonable to predict that future flexible devices will also have touch sensitive surfaces. In this context, the following question arises: can interface deformation and touch co-exist in the same interaction cycle?

This study investigates the potential of combining, within the same interaction cycle, deformation and touch input in a handheld device. Using a flexible, input-only device connected to an external display, we compared a multitouch input technique and two hybrid deformation-plus-touch input techniques (bending and twisting the device, plus either front- or back-touch), in an image-docking task.