Evaluating the utility of two gestural discomfort evaluation methods

Abstract

Evaluating physical discomfort of designed gestures is important for creating safe and usable gesture-based interaction systems; yet, gestural discomfort evaluation has not been extensively studied in HCI, and few evaluation methods seem currently available whose utility has been experimentally confirmed. To address this, this study empirically demonstrated the utility of the subjective rating method after a small number of gesture repetitions (a maximum of four repetitions) in evaluating designed gestures in terms of physical discomfort resulting from prolonged, repetitive gesture use. The subjective rating method has been widely used in previous gesture studies but without empirical evidence on its utility. This study also proposed a gesture discomfort evaluation method based on an existing ergonomics posture evaluation tool (Rapid Upper Limb Assessment) and demonstrated its utility in evaluating designed gestures in terms of physical discomfort resulting from prolonged, repetitive gesture use. Rapid Upper Limb Assessment is an ergonomics postural analysis tool that quantifies the work-related musculoskeletal disorders risks for manual tasks, and has been hypothesized to be capable of correctly determining discomfort resulting from prolonged, repetitive gesture use. The two methods were evaluated through comparisons against a baseline method involving discomfort rating after actual prolonged, repetitive gesture use. Correlation analyses indicated that both methods were in good agreement with the baseline. The methods proposed in this study seem useful for predicting discomfort resulting from prolonged, repetitive gesture use, and are expected to help interaction designers create safe and usable gesture-based interaction systems.

Use of Commercial Off-The-Shelf Devices for the Detection of Manual Gestures in Surgery: Systematic Literature Review

“…The LMC detects the positions of fine objects such as finger tips or pen tips in a Cartesian plane. Its interaction zone is an inverted cone of approximately 0.23 m³ and the motion detection range fluctuates between 20 mm and 600 mm [91,129]. The manufacturer reports an accuracy of 0.01 mm for fingertip detection, although 1 study showed an accuracy of 0.7 mm, which is considered superior to that achieved using MK [134,136].…”

“…With regard to the LMC, once the 6 studies on robotics had been discarded, 4 articles were identified that presented limitations derived from using the device (18%). These studies noted alterations in performance when there was dirt on the surface of the device, as well as the limited number of gestures recognized owing to the occlusion phenomenon [87], alterations caused by ambient lighting [129], fatigue in some users [90], and a lack of studies validating the device for medical use [77].…”

Musculoskeletal Risks: RULA Bibliometric Review

“…One study used RULA in conjunction with another method called Quick Rating (QRating) to ergonomically assess people who made typical gestures when communicating. Physical discomfort during these gestures should be controlled [243].…”

Eliciting Ergonomic User-Defined Gestures for Virtual Reality: A Pilot Study

“…These include subjective psycho-physical ratings such as the Borg CR10 (N. Williams, 2017) and objective kinematics-based scoring systems such as the Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) (McAtamney & Corlett, 2004). The Borg CR10 and RULA, assessed after a short number of gesture repetitions, have both been shown to be useful for predicting discomfort and fatigue resulting from actual prolonged and repetitive gesture use (Son et al, 2017). Strategies for mitigating performance bias include the use of covert kinaesthetic priming (Hoff et al, 2016) and soft constraints such as attaching weights to participants' wrists (Ruiz & Vogel, 2015).…”