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Jota, R.J. (2011)
Understanding the Effect of User Position in Pointing Techniques for Large Scale Displays. PhD thesis, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal, September.
Type: PhD thesis.
Note: Jota was under the supervision of Joaquim Jorge, with myself as co-supervisor.
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Abstract.
Large-scale displays support interaction scenarios where the user is physically unrestrained. However, standard input devices – such as keyboards and mice – are cumbersome and might restrain user mobility in large scale displays. Pointing has been suggested as an interaction technique adequate for such scenarios. However, little is known regarding what human factors affect pointing performance. In particular, whether user position and distance to display are relevant to pointing is yet to be researched. Our proposal is to understand how user position and location affect pointing as an interaction technique. Our results suggest that user distance to the display does not affect pointing, but users exhibit preferences for a specific distance according to the given task. We also found that control type and parallax have influence the way users perform. The results show that techniques based on rotational control perform better for targeting tasks, and techniques with low parallax are best for tracing tasks. To conclude, these results were applied in a real-world scenario where a prototype for architectural design review was build for a large-scale display with a multi-modal interface based on a pointing modality.
Keywords: Human Computer Interaction, Large-scale Displays, Pointing Techniques, Human Factors, Parallax, User Distance.