The aim of the present study is to investigate Chinese handwriting on mobile touch devices, considering the effects of three characteristics of the human finger (type, length, and width) and three characteristics of Chinese characters (direction of the first stroke, number of strokes, and structure).

Due to the popularity of touch devices in recent years, finger input for Chinese characters has attracted more attention from both industry and academia. However, previous studies have no systematical consideration on the effects of human finger and Chinese characters on Chinese handwriting performance.

An experiment was reported in this article to illustrate the effects of the human finger and Chinese characters on the Chinese handwriting performance (i.e., input time, accuracy, number of protruding strokes, mental workload, satisfaction, and physical fatigue).

The experiment results indicated that all six factors have significant effects on Chinese handwriting performance, especially on the input time, accuracy, and number of protruding strokes.

Finger type, finger length, finger width, direction of the first stroke, number of strokes, and character structures are significantly influencing Chinese handwriting performance. These factors should be taken into more consideration in future research and the practical design for Chinese handwriting systems.