Studying the movement of high-tech Rodentia

Abstract

This study compares seven input devices (mouse, touchsereen, two trackba.lls, mousepen, touchp@ and joystick) performing a star tracing task. Along with the device comparisons, the diffemtce between moving with the selector button pressed (dragging) or with the button released (pointing) is examined. Recent work has found that dragging is slower and more error prone than pointing when using a mouse, stylus or trackball [1~,3]. In the present study, 28 subjects used all seven input deviees for boti dragging and pointing tasks. Highly significant device differences were found for both speed and accuracy (p's <.001). The touchscreen and mouse WE the~t devius and the joystick and touchpad were the worst. The fastest devices also produced the fewest errors. l%e main effect for the button position was also significant @'s c.005) with dragging being slower and more error-prone than pointing. However, there was a significant interaction between input device and button position. For one of the devices, the mousepen, dragging was actually faster and less error prone than pointing. What is different about the mousepen? Some possibilities are considered along with how these results can be applied to the design of input devices and interaction techniques.

Device comparisons for goal-directed drawing tasks

“…This task dependency on the performance of the devices is best illustrated by the performance difference of the touchween in a prior study [1] and the current study. It moved from fast to last!…”

“…Four of the devices (mouse, mousepen, trackball, and touchscreen) were chosen based on their strong performance in a previous experiment [1]. Since the fiit experiment used a simple laboratory task, their inclusion in the cummt study will directly address the impact which the experimental task has on device performance.…”

The groovepad

“…Later studies expanded the knowledge on the usability of various input devices for 2D pointing tasks (e.g. [6,8,10,16]). Common observations from the various studies are that isotonic devices such as touchscreens, tablets and mice perform best and that position control is superior to rate control.…”

Unleashed

“…Previous work has suggested that a touchscreen may perform better than a touchpad [4] and at least as well as a mouse [7]. While we did not perform rigorous testing with the touchscreen, we tried to discover any performance issues associated with the stylus and to understand participants' preferences for the touchscreen compared to their PC's pointing device.…”