Balancing Accuracy and Speed in Gaze-Touch Grid Menu Selection in AR via Mapping Sub-Menus to a Hand-Held Device

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Augmented Reality Systems
• Usability Engineering

Background:

• Eye gaze offers a potentially fast and ergonomic interaction method for augmented reality (AR).
• Current consumer-level AR systems have limited eye-tracking accuracy, compromising selection speed in gaze-touch techniques.
• Existing gaze-touch methods often sacrifice selection speed for enhanced accuracy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and evaluate the Hand-Held Sub-Menu (HHSM) technique for balancing accuracy and speed in AR gaze-touch grid menu selection.
• To investigate the design space of the HHSM technique through empirical studies.
• To address the trade-off between selection accuracy and speed in AR interfaces.

Main Methods:

• The Hand-Held Sub-Menu (HHSM) technique was developed, dividing grid menus into sub-menus mapped to a handheld device's touchscreen.
• Users select a sub-menu via eye gaze and confirm the target item with a single touch action.
• Empirical studies with 24 participants were conducted to evaluate the HHSM technique's performance.

Main Results:

• The HHSM technique demonstrated an effective balance between accuracy and speed in AR grid menu selection.
• The error rate for selections using HHSM was approximately 2%.
• Average selection completion times were 0.93 seconds with two-thumb interaction and 1.1 seconds with single-finger interaction.

Conclusions:

• The HHSM technique successfully balances accuracy and speed for gaze-touch grid menu selection in augmented reality.
• The method provides an efficient interaction paradigm for AR environments with limited eye-tracking accuracy.
• HHSM offers a viable solution for improving user experience in AR target selection tasks.