Pointing in entertainment-oriented environments : appreciation versus performance

Abstract

Multimedia :Applications for consumer entertainment of I en employ a point-and-select interaction style, borrowed from more task-oriented computer applications. The environment afuse and the pointing devices involved are so different, however, that a higher importance should be attributed to the users' appreciation of the pointing device than to its efficiency or any other objective performance measure. We set up an experiment to investigate how appreciation and performance measures relate. The experiment involved six different input devices, two CD-i litles and 16 subjects making both voluntary and prescribed cursor control movements. For the mouse-like pointing devices we obtained a Fins' Law-like dependence on target width and target distance. This was, however, not replicated for any of the other input devices, mainly owing to a positive influence of cursor constraints. Concerning the relation of the performance measures with the users' appreciation, we found that neither time-to-target nor relative-path-length on its own is a reliable indicator of the users' appreciation. Together, however, they might explain the appreciation scores to a considerable extent