Usability Comparison of Mouse, Touch and Tangible Inputs for 3D Data Manipulation
Lonni Besançon, Paul Issartel, Mehdi Ammi, Tobias Isenberg
TL;DR
This study compares mouse, touch, and tangible input for 3D data manipulation using a 3D docking task across 36 participants and 15 trials per modality. It reports that all modalities achieve similar precision, while tangible input yields the fastest task completion, with touch intermediate and mouse the slowest. Workload and fatigue show modality-dependent patterns, and user preferences favor tangible overall, though novelty effects may influence this result. The findings support developing an interaction continuum that lets users fluidly switch among input techniques based on the task, informing design for integrated 3D data exploration environments.
Abstract
We evaluate the performance and usability of mouse-based, touch-based, and tangible interaction for manipulating objects in a 3D virtual environment. This comparison is a step toward a better understanding of the limitations and benefits of these existing interaction techniques, with the ultimate goal of facilitating the integration of different 3D data exploration environments into a single interaction continuum. For this purpose we analyze participants' performance in 3D manipulation using a docking task. We measured completion times, docking precision, as well as subjective criteria such as fatigue, workload, and preference. Our results show that the three input modalities provide similar levels of precision but require different interaction times. We also discuss our qualitative observations as well as people's preferences and put our findings into context of the practical application domain of 3D data analysis environments.