Evaluation of 3D Selection Tasks in Parabolic Flight Conditions: Pointing Task in Augmented Reality User Interfaces

Abstract

In this paper we describe an experiment that studies the effect of hyper- and microgravity on human hand-eye coordination while interacting with virtual content provided by a head-mounted display in Augmented Reality environments. Because the selection of an object is one of the most fundamental classes of interaction tasks, the interrelations between a human body and the surrounding augmented environment was evaluated by performing pointing actions towards a target. We investigated human sensorimotoric coordination and workload while applying different placement configurations of a virtual keyboard, where precise pointing movements are involved. Therefore we performed a comparative user study under parabolic flight conditions with three different keyboard configurations, considered haptic feedback and the location related to humans body frame of reference. In a within-subject design, objective measures showed a significant requirement of haptic feedback, but was tended toward to be inside the human body frame. However, subjects statements tended to the preference of using virtual keyboards with haptic feedback and outside humans body frame.

Publication
Proceedings of the 11th ACM SIGGRAPH International Conference on Virtual-Reality Continuum and Its Applications in Industry