Touch or touchless?

Abstract

Interactive public displays have been exploited and studied for engaging interaction in several previous studies. In this context, applications have been focused on supporting learning or entertainment activities, specifically designed for people with special needs. This includes, for example, those with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). In this paper, we present a comparison study aimed at understanding the difference in terms of usability, effectiveness, and enjoyment perceived by users with ASD between two interaction modalities usually supported by interactive displays: touch-based and touchless gestural interaction. We present the outcomes of a within-subject setup involving 8 ASD users (age 18-25 y.o., IQ 40-60), based on the use of two similar user interfaces, differing only by the interaction modality. We show that touch interaction provides higher usability level and results in more effective actions, although touchless interaction is more effective in terms of enjoyment and engagement. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → User studies; Usability testing; Interaction paradigms; Displays and imagers; Gestural input; Touch screens.

Responsible Innovation of Touchless Haptics: A Prospective Design Exploration in Social Interaction

“…We recall that RI encourages us to question our work and go beyond developing technology simply because we can and to deepen the needs of society when we develop applications. Since touchless systems are relatively a new technology it could be difficult to use [39]. For example, it could be difficult to generalize that this technology will be desirable for the masses.…”

Avanços na tecnologia para o desenvolvimento da competência social de alunos com transtorno do espectro autista. Revisão sistemática

“…Aunque la entrada táctil en las pantallas interactivas permite interacciones más efectivas y utilizables en los adolescentes con TEA, estudios recientes (Gentile et al, 2019) han encontrado que el uso de gestos en el aire parece aumentar el nivel de disfrute debido al mayor compromiso de este tipo de interacción. Por ello, las interfaces gestuales sin contacto pueden ser más adecuadas para todos aquellos contextos donde el aprendizaje es el objetivo principal.…”

A Methodology to Evaluate User Experience for People with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Studies have evaluated their proposals through the application of simplified and/or complete versions of the system usability scale (SUS) [8]. Some studies have modified the SUS scale (using simplified language, incorporating emoticons, or reducing the scale) when used with users with ASD [16,17]. Other studies have evaluated their proposals with experts in ASD and/or tutors of users with ASD, using the SUS scale in its complete [18][19][20] or reduced [21] version.…”