Human Performance Evaluation of a Finger-Controlled Pointing Device
Sarah Douglas, Anant Kartik Mithal
Committee:
Technical Report(Dec 1969)
Keywords:

A keyboard with an integrated isometric velocity controlled joystick, called a key joystick, was compared in learning and skilled human performance with a standard mouse in an modified version of the usual one dimensional Fitts' Law pointing task. The modified tasks included using two dimensions, i.e. motion in a plane, and dragging. Data was also collected on mode switching between typing and pointing. Skilled key joystick performance was comparable to that reponed in the literature for other isometric velocity-control joysticks. The key joystick was significantly slower for pointing and dragging in both learning and skilled performance, and had more errors. At the end of the experiment the pointing task time for the key joystick was approximately 55% slower than the mouse; the dragging task time was approximately 53%. For the mode switching task, the key joystick had a significantly faster homing time, but it was not enough to compensate in overall task time for the significantly larger pointing time and non-significant difference in typing time. Both devices were shown to obey Fitts' Law for pointing and for two dimensions. This contributes to research interest in whether Fitts' Law describes motion of the finger-operated, isometric velocity controlled devices, and two-dimensional tasks. One final observation is that isometric velocity control devices are quite sensitive to the value of control equation parameters. This might account for the wide cross-experimental variance observed in their performance reponed in the literature.