Copyright © 2007 The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers
Regular Section -- Papers -- Human-computer Interaction |
The Optimal Calculation Method to Determine the Effective Target Width for the Application of Fitts' Law
1 The author is with Nagoya University, Nagoya-shi, 464–8603 Japan, and also Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, HLJ, 150001 P.R. China. E-mail: kongjing2002{at}hotmail.com, 2 The author is with Kochi University of Technology, Kami-shi, 782–8502 Japan.
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Abstract |
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In human-computer interaction, Fitts' law has been applied in one-dimensional pointing task evaluation for some decades, and the usage of effective target width (We) in Fitts' law has been accepted as an international standard in ISO standards 9241-9 [4]. However, the discussion on the concrete methods for calculating We has not been developed comprehensively nor have the different methods of calculation been integrated. Therefore, this paper focuses on a detailed description and a comparison of the two main We calculation methods. One method is mapping all the abscissa data in one united relative coordinate system to perform the calculation (called CC method) and the other is dividing the data into two groups and mapping them in two separate coordinate systems (called SC method). We tested the accuracy of each method and compared both methods in a highly controlled experiment. The experiments' results and data analysis show that the CC method is better than the SC method for human computer interface modeling. These results will be instrumental for future application of Fitts' law.
Key Words: human-computer interaction, Fitts' law, pointing task, effective target width
Manuscript received December 1, 2005. Manuscript revised July 18, 2006.