Ubiquitous Interactions for Heads-Up Computing: Understanding Users’ Preferences for Subtle Interaction Techniques in Everyday Settings
Shardul Sapkota, Ashwin Ram, Shengdong Zhao · 2021
In order to satisfy users’ information needs while incurring minimum interference to their ongoing activities, previous studies have proposed using Optical Head-mounted Displays (OHMDs) with different input techniques. However, it is unclear how these techniques compare against one another in terms of being comfortable and non-intrusive to a user’s everyday tasks. Through a wizard-of-oz study, we thus compared four subtle interaction techniques (feet, arms, thumb-index-fingers, and teeth) in three daily hands-busy tasks under different settings (giving a presentation–sitting, carrying bags–walking, and folding clothes–standing). We found that while each interaction technique has its niche, thumb-index-finger interaction has the best overall balance and is most preferred as a cross-scenario subtle interaction technique for smart glasses. We provide further evaluation of thumb-index-finger interaction with an in-the-wild study with 8 users. Our results contribute to an enhanced understanding of user preferences for subtle interaction techniques with smart glasses for everyday use.