Supervisory Control Information Management Research (SCIMR) Studies: Study of Hotkey Operation Relative to Touch Commands in Utility Tasks (SHORTCUT)

Abstract

This study investigated the effectiveness of hotkeys on a game pad (used with a standard mouse) and multi-touch in comparison to the standard mouse. The devices were the standard mouse and Belkin n52te, a 3M 22-finger multi-touch monitor, and the standard mouse alone. Participants were assigned one of these device configurations to complete 2 trials, an N-shaped maze and a spiral maze, each paired with simpler secondary tasks on the other side of the screen. The mazes had treasures to collect, attackers to avoid, and blockades to shoot down. No significance was observed for total maze completion time, but the Belkin n52te trended better than the other devices on all criteria.