From: owner-3dui@hitl.washington.edu on behalf of Doug Bowman
[bowman@vt.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2001 11:47 AM
To: 3dui List
Cc: Chris Rhoton
Subject: RE: text/number input in VEs

Pablo,

Good point about the types of evaluation. Our current evaluation
is testing a combination of input devices and interaction techniques.
Some devices, like the Twiddler chord keyboard, have a predefined
interaction technique. Others, like the pinch gloves, offer much
more flexibility.

My normal scheme for evaluation is to do some initial small experiments
first, then based on the understanding you gain from this, to do a
testbed evaluation. That's what I'm working towards in this case as well.

--Doug

--
Doug A. Bowman, Ph.D. (540) 231-2058
Assistant Professor   (540) 231-6075 (fax)
Computer Science      bowman@vt.edu
Virginia Tech       www.cs.vt.edu/~bowman/




> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-3dui@hitl.washington.edu
> [mailto:owner-3dui@hitl.washington.edu]On Behalf Of Pablo Figueroa
> Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 5:18 PM
> To: Doug Bowman
> Cc: 3dui List; Chris Rhoton
> Subject: Re: text/number input in VEs
>
>
> Hi Doug,
>
> I don't remember good references about this topic, but I think it is
> necessary to have good I/O in VR applications for any type of information,
> including text and numbers. If we don't, the environment won't be
> complete, so a user will have to switch between applications to complete a
> task (not nice at all... ;->)
>
> By the way, I wonder how you explore the solution space. One option is to
> compare between different hardware environments, as I think you're doing,
> but this always leave doubts about better environments or better
> interaction techniques, for example one based on speech recognition. How
> can we find the best option for a particular task? I think it's possible
> to find a certain hardware/sw configuration that maximizes
> performance/usability, but maybe such an installation is too expensive in
> a particular situation. Other option is to classify environments by a
> certain metric (one option is price, despite I don't like it...) and to
> choose the best one in a particular category. In this case, is the pinch
> glove comparable to a speech recognition engine, for this particular task?
> Is there a set of common performance/usability parameters that can be used
> in the comparison?
>
> Best Regards,
>
> On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Doug Bowman wrote:
>
> > Greetings everyone!
> >
> > It's been awfully quiet on the 3DUI list lately. I wanted to
> > remind everyone that the list is here and still active. There
> > are lots of you out there - consider sending a message to the
> > list updating us on your current research, asking a question,
> > or raising a topic for discussion!
> >
> > Along those lines, let me suggest a discussion topic. I've
> > been working on methods for entering text and numeric data
> > in immersive VEs where no standard keyboard is available. You
> > may have seen the Pinch Keyboard technique we presented at
> > HCI International 2001. I'm firmly convinced that such techniques
> > are necessary and useful in many VE applications, but others
> > apparently don't see the need. What do you think? Is text/
> > number entry an important task for immersive VEs? Why or why not?
> >
> > On a related note, I'm looking for references in this area. I
> > know about Ivan's virtual notepad, and several other "virtual
> > keyboards" (not used in VEs, but could be applied there).
> > Has anyone used a chord keyboard, soft keyboard, or speech for
> > text/number entry in an immersive VE? Any usability or performance
> > results?
> >
> > We're currently doing a study comparing the pinch keyboard with
> > a Twiddler 2 chord keyboard and a soft keyboard using the pen &
> > tablet technique.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Doug
> >
> > --
> > Doug A. Bowman, Ph.D. (540) 231-2058
> > Assistant Professor   (540) 231-6075 (fax)
> > Computer Science      bowman@vt.edu
> > Virginia Tech       www.cs.vt.edu/~bowman/
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------
> Pablo Figueroa              pfiguero@cs.ualberta.ca
> PhD Student                 http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~pfiguero
> University of Alberta
>
> Relax ... God is in charge
> -------------------------------------------
>