Crossing Rays: Evaluation of Bimanual Mid-air Selection Techniques in an Immersive Environment

TL;DR

This study evaluates four bimanual mid-air selection techniques with visual aids in immersive environments, demonstrating faster and more accurate selections than unimanual methods, and discusses their impact on user experience.

Contribution

It introduces and compares four variations of bimanual mid-air selection techniques with visual aids, providing insights into their performance and user experience in immersive environments.

Findings

Bimanual techniques are faster than unimanual ones.

Supporting features improve selection accuracy.

Visual aids influence performance and user experience.

Abstract

Mid-air navigation offers a method of aerial travel that mitigates the constraints associated with continuous navigation. A mid-air selection technique is essential to enable such navigation. In this paper, we consider four variations of intersection-based bimanual mid-air selection techniques with visual aids and supporting features: Simple-Ray, Simple-Stripe, Precision-Stripe, and Cursor-Sync. We evaluate their performance and user experience compared to an unimanual mid-air selection technique using two tasks that require selecting a mid-air position with or without a reference object. Our findings indicate that the bimanual techniques generally demonstrate faster selection times compared to the unimanual technique. With a supporting feature, the bimanual techniques can provide a more accurate selection than the unimanual technique. Based on our results, we discuss the effect of selection technique's visual aids and supporting features on performance and user experience for mid-air selection.