A Comparative Evaluation of Pointing and Crossing in Moving Target Selection

ObjectiveThis work presents a comprehensive analysis of fundamental performance of crossing-based moving target selection.BackgroundAlthough the crossing interaction with static targets has been theoretically studied, there has yet to be a generalizable, controlled empirical study investigating the fundamental performance of crossing-based selection for moving targets.MethodWe conducted an experiment with stylus input to investigate how users acquire moving targets with crossing compared to pointing as a baseline.ResultsThe most noteworthy finding of our study is that crossing had overall greater advantages over pointing for moving target selection (a 12.37% reduction in task completion time and a 5.88% increase in accuracy rate for <i>orthogonal crossing</i>, and a comparable task time and a 4.71% increase in accuracy rate for <i>collinear crossing</i>). However, the advantages of crossing would be insignificant when targets become larger than approximately 14.69 mm or move slower than 14.69 mm/s.ConclusionCrossing performance varied between <i>collinear crossing and orthogonal crossing</i>. <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>T</mml:mi><mml:mo>=</mml:mo><mml:mi>a</mml:mi><mml:mo>+</mml:mo><mml:mi>b</mml:mi><mml:mi>l</mml:mi><mml:mi>o</mml:mi><mml:msub><mml:mi>g</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mo>(</mml:mo><mml:mrow><mml:mi>A</mml:mi><mml:mo>+</mml:mo><mml:mfrac><mml:mi>V</mml:mi><mml:mi>k</mml:mi></mml:mfrac></mml:mrow><mml:mo>)</mml:mo></mml:mrow><mml:mo>-</mml:mo><mml:mi>c</mml:mi><mml:mi>l</mml:mi><mml:mi>o</mml:mi><mml:msub><mml:mi>g</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mo>(</mml:mo><mml:mrow><mml:mfrac><mml:mi>W</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mfrac><mml:mo>-</mml:mo><mml:mfrac><mml:mi>V</mml:mi><mml:mi>k</mml:mi></mml:mfrac></mml:mrow><mml:mo>)</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:mrow></mml:math> in (Hoffmann, 1991) can be used to model time performance of crossing-based moving target selection.ApplicationSuch results provide a theoretical foundation for crossing-based interface design with moving objects.