A Comparative Evaluation of Pointing and Crossing in Moving Target Selection

ObjectiveThis work presents a comprehensive analysis of fundamental performance of crossing-based moving target selection.BackgroundAlthough the crossing interaction with static targets has been theoretically studied, there has yet to be a generalizable, controlled empirical study investigating the fundamental performance of crossing-based selection for moving targets.MethodWe conducted an experiment with stylus input to investigate how users acquire moving targets with crossing compared to pointing as a baseline.ResultsThe most noteworthy finding of our study is that crossing had overall greater advantages over pointing for moving target selection (a 12.37% reduction in task completion time and a 5.88% increase in accuracy rate for orthogonal crossing, and a comparable task time and a 4.71% increase in accuracy rate for collinear crossing). However, the advantages of crossing would be insignificant when targets become larger than approximately 14.69 mm or move slower than 14.69 mm/s.ConclusionCrossing performance varied between collinear crossing and orthogonal crossing. $T=a+blo{g}_2\left(A+\frac{V}{k}\right)-clo{g}_2\left(\frac{W}{2}-\frac{V}{k}\right)$ in (Hoffmann, 1991) can be used to model time performance of crossing-based moving target selection.ApplicationSuch results provide a theoretical foundation for crossing-based interface design with moving objects.