No abstract

Users have many different reasons to choose one product over another and may not be fully aware of why. Understanding these reasons could help Human Factors professionals enhance the user experience by influencing design. In this study, we compared users' subjective ratings of their performances to their actual performances to examine their ability to evaluate their performance during a point and click task using a clickpad. We used seven notebook computers and adjusted the cursor speeds in the control panel. The experimental design is within subjects with two within-group cursor speed conditions, slow and fast. Results indicate that participants are not able to accurately rank their performance on this task.

The introduction of touchscreen technology has remarkably changed how people interact with their devices. Users may adopt different methods of input depending on the type of device they are interacting with and the type of task being performed. In the present study, we collected data on users’ preferences with regards to interface interaction, device position, and posture, while performing various tasks with four different touch screen devices: a touchscreen desktop, laptop, iPad or iPod Touch. Results indicated that users prefer touch over traditional input devices when performing more interactive tasks (ex: drawing, gaming). We also observed that the device position adopted by users may promote suboptimal flexion angles of the torso, neck and wrists. The information gleaned from this study contributes to the limited body of knowledge on the ergonomic implications of touch screen devices.