Influencing Tabletop Interaction Speed: Directness and Device

This thesis presents two studies into factors that influence speed of passing documents on a tabletop display. Document passing consist of rotation and translation tasks. Two interaction techniques that support both rotation and translation, RNT and Corner, were compared in both studies. The RNT technique is an semi-integral technique and combines rotation and translation. The Corner technique is a separate technique and requires a separate rotation and a separate translation movement. This thesis tried to find the reason behind the performance differences of prior studies and to find which underlying factors influence performance on document passing tasks using a tabletop display. The first study investigated the influence of movement distance, precision and handle size, using 8 participants. The second study investigated the influence of directness and device, using 18 participants. The results of the studies could not find the reason of the contradicting results from the prior studies. The semi-integral technique, RNT, was the fastest technique in every condition, estimating a 47% improvement in the first study and 11% improvement in the second study. Furthermore, it presented that direct interaction was 36% faster than indirect interaction and had a 40% lower workload. The 3 devices compared in the second study, a stylus, a glove finger and a mouse, did not show a significant performance difference.