ArmMenu: command input on distant displays with proprioception based lateral arm movements

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we present ArmMenu, a command input approach for distant displays. ArmMenu has a circular interface like pie menus and menu selection is performed by proprioception-based lateral arm movements. We implemented ArmMenu with an off-the-shelf body tracking device (Kinect) and conducted two experiments to validate its efficacy. In the first experiment, we explored the design space of ArmMenu by varying the number of menu items, with exposed or hidden menu modes. Users can operate up to 8-item menus with high selection accuracy (>98%). ArmMenu was fast and accurate even with the hidden menu mode. The second experiment compared the performance of ArmMenu and touchless marking menus. While having similar selection accuracy, ArmMenu was faster and more preferable by users. Our studies consequently demonstrate ArmMenu's effectiveness for command input on distant displays.

KEYWORDS:

• Touchless interaction
• menus
• distant displays
• command input
• motion sensing devices
• proprioception senses

Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2016YFB1001405); Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, CAS (No. QYZDY-SSW-JSC041); Foundation of Jiangsu Province Science & Technology Department (No. BE2017104); Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61602236); Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20160801); China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2016M591843); and Postdoctoral Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. 1501053B).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Arm akimbo means hand on hips and elbow projecting outwards.

2 According to the time analysis in Experiment 1, participants on average took 350 ms to complete Step 1 (start task) shown in Figure 4. Hence the threshold should be larger than 350 ms.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the National Key Research and Development Project of China [grant number 2016YFB1001405]; Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, Chinese Academy Sciences (CAS) [grant number QYZDY-SSW-JSC041]; Foundation of Jiangsu Province Science & Technology Department [grant number BE2017104]; Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 61602236]; Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [grant number BK20160801]; China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [grant number 2016M591843]; and Postdoctoral Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [grant number 1501053B].