Effect of control-display transfer function on pointing performance for a hand/finger based touchless gestural controls

Abstract

Recent technologies now allow touchless gestural controls to be integrated as computing input devices. Unlike traditional input devices, the effect of design parameters (such as control-display transfer functions for physical to onscreen movements) for touchless controls is largely unknown. This paper presents an experiment where a hand- and finger-based touchless gestural control system replaced typical pointing and clicking functions of a mouse. The effect of different pointer-acceleration-based control-display transfer functions (dynamic CD gain with different scaling factors) on performance for a standard, 2-dimensional Fitts’ task was evaluated for 15 participants. Additionally, the influence of armrest support positioning was investigated. Results showed significantly increased error rates for the high level of control-display gain (SF=1000) in the gestural controls. Neither CD gain nor armrest position had significant effect on effective throughput or movement times, though lower CD gain showed the best performance and lowest error rates. Overall performance for the touchless gestural system was less than that of a traditional mouse, though comparable to previous gestural or remote pointing systems.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Balakrishnan

MacKenzie

I. S.

(1997, March). Performance differences in the fingers, wrist, and forearm in computer input control. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 303-310). ACM.

Cabral

M. C.

Morimoto

C. H.

Zuffo

M. K.

(2005, October). On the usability of gesture interfaces in virtual reality environments. In Proceedings of the 2005 Latin American conference on Human-computer interaction (pp. 100-108). ACM.

Casiez

Roussel

(2011, October). No more bricolage!: methods and tools to characterize, replicate and compare pointing transfer functions. In Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology (pp. 603-614). ACM.

Casiez

Vogel

Balakrishnan

Cockburn

(2008). The impact of control-display gain on user performance in pointing tasks. Human–Computer Interaction, 23(3), 215-250.

Farhadi-Niaki

Etemad

S. A.

Arya

(2013). Design and Usability Analysis of Gesture-Based Control for Common Desktop Tasks. In Human-Computer Interaction. Interaction Modalities and Techniques (pp. 215-224). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Ferran

Argelaguet

Carlos

Andujar

(2013). A survey of 3D object selection techniques for virtual environments, Computers & Graphics. Volume 37, Issue 3, May 2013, Pages 121-136

International Organization for Standardization. (2011). Ergonomics of human-system interaction: Part 420. Selection of Physical Input Devices. Reference No. ISO9241-420.

Pino

Tzemis

Ioannou

Kouroupetroglou

(2013). Using kinect for 2D and 3D pointing tasks: performance evaluation. In Human-Computer Interaction. Interaction Modalities and Techniques (pp. 358-367). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

MacKenzie

I. S.

Jusoh

(2001). An evaluation of two input devices for remote pointing. In Engineering for human-computer interaction (pp. 235-250). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

10.

Meyer

Abrams

Kornblum

Wright

Smith

JEK

(1988).Optimality in human motor performance: deal control of rapid aimed movements. Psychology Reviews 1988; 95(3): 340–70.

11.

Soukoreff

R. W.

MacKenzie

I. S.

(2004). Towards a standard for pointing device evaluation, perspectives on 27 years of Fitts’ law research in HCI. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 61(6), 751-789.

12.

Tan

H. Z.

Srinivasan

M. A.

Eberman

Cheng

(1994). Human factors for the design of force-reflecting haptic interfaces. Dynamic Systems and Control, 55(1), 353-359.

13.

Young

J.G.

Lin

Bick

Sarwar

Dennerlein

J.T.

(2013) Gestural Workspaces for Computer Interaction Configuration and Performance. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (pp. 424-428)