ÉCOLE POLYTECHNIQUE

FÉDÉRALE DE LAUSANNE

Technologies for

Vocational Education and Training

A Comparison between Tangible UI and Graphical UI

Lorenzo Lucignano

08/04/2014

Problem

• Develop a new activity which is

– pragmatic, it helps to solve a real-world problem

– grounded on the workspace context, the tool should mimic real tools

• Keep it tangible!

Research question

• Which kinds of tasks well support the tangible interaction?

– What happens when the physical-virtual correspondence changes during the task?

• How do gaze patterns vary between physical objects and virtual 3D objects?

Cutting Activity

Experiment conditionsTangible Virtual

Experiment Setup

• Task : Shaping the brick according to a physical model

Participants: 18 EPFL students, 2nd and 3th year MT and Mechanical Engineering

Model 1 Model 2

Symmetry

High Low

Plausibility

Usual Unusual

Experiment Flow

Questionnaire (age, gender, academic background…)

Pretest

•Mental Rotation (12 questions, 3 min)

•Paper Folding (10 questions, 3 min)

Demonstration

Model 1Model 2Final Interview

Results: Quality

Quality Score:1. the shape is completely different from the model

2. one major mistake, but making abstraction of it, the shape is recognized

3. shape is mostly correct

4. the shape is correct

5 raters -> inter-rater reliability 0.93

Model 1 Model 2

Results: Duration

Model 1 Model 2

Results: Number of Created Pieces Model 1

(F[1,16]=9.16,p=.008)Model 2

(F[1,16]=5.13,p=.037)

Possible reason: users in tangible condition usually do not delete the pieces. They keep the reference with the brick.

Results: Areas of interest in Gaze Analysis

Shape or Model

Brick

Screen OBJ

Results: % Dwells on the Model and their duration

DUAL-T Advisory Board Meeting 2014

Model 1(F[1,16]=5.45,p=.032)

Model 2(F[1,16]=7.93,p=.012)

(F[1,16]=5.23,p=.036) (F[1,16]=6.66,p=.020)

Results: Revisit Time on the Model

Model 1(F[1,16]=1.76,p=.202)

Model 2(F[1,16]=11.83,p=.003)

•More dwells and longer durations might indicate a difficulty in extracting general information•Shorter revisit time can indicate a need of refreshing the working memory

The tangible brick may influence positively the experience

Results: Transitions Graph Model 1

Tangible Virtual

Model

Model

Results: Transitions Graph Model 2

Tangible Virtual

Conclusions

Absence of significant difference in terms of quality and overall

time performance

Clues that the tangible interface affects the experience

positively

Thanks!