Preliminary Usability Tests of the Wearable Joystick for Gloves-On Hazardous Environments

In this paper, we describe usability tests to evaluate a gestural joystick as a new input device. The usability of a device addresses five main issues: learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction. These different measures of usability are used in an attempt to compare the gestural joystick, called ”wearable joystick”, with four different input devices. This paper reviews the wearable joystick and then describes the quantitative methods for the measures. The claimed features of the wearable joystick include easy and wire-free installation into regular gloves, unencumbered operation, and intuitive control. While the analyses are preliminary, with only five users per device, the results are mixed. In general, results suggest the glove provides adequate performance for users, scoring within norms of other devices for a small sample size. However, several of the measures show that the performances of the wearable joystick are worse than other input devices. Despite such drawbacks, the wearable joystick, of all input devices tested, has significant advantages, such as wearability, a simple but strong sensor mechanism, and a natural and intuitive use paradigm. We envision that as the data processing algorithm of the wearable joystick are improved and the full range of benefits can be compared, the wearable joystick will overcome these drawbacks in the near future.