A Comparative Study Of Novel Target Property Setting Modalities For Rapid And Continuous One Stroke Operations

A typical interactive task includes three process, i.e. target object selection, operation command selection and property setting. This paper proposes a continuous interactive mode, which combines object selection, command selection and object manipulation with one continuous stroke. Different from point-and-click mode, our interactive mode is implemented with stroke mode, which smooths the process of human-computer interaction and raises efficiency since that each task stage is neatly integrated. Eight parameter setting modes presented in this thesis are respectively of isometric linear widget, isotonic linear widget, isometric annular widget, isotonic annular widget, isometric free curved widget with full visual feedback, isotonic free curved widget with full visual feedback, isometric free curved widget with partial feedback and isotonic free curved widget with partial visual feedback. Each widget has its unique merits and demerits. Users are more familiar with the linear widget for it is more like traditional linear menus. However, annular widget outperforms the others on task time due to the least distance from its center to each item. Benefits from ergonomics, free curve widget offers the best user experience, decreasing the pressure caused by vision and psychology to the minimum, attracting users by its painting-like operations. Unexpectedly, the error rate of free curve widget is the lowest.The proposed one-stroke property setting modes can be used flexibly and combined with other interaction techniques in the three processes of an interactive task. To simplify the experimental process, we only considered single target selection in object selection process and a PieMenu, which contained four items, was employed in command selection process. In real applications, the proposed one-stroke property setting modes can be expanded easily, e.g. combining with Pigtail or Marking Menu, single target selection can be expanded to multiple target selection and menu item number can be chosen according to real needs.