Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Gaze vs. Mouse in Games: The Effects on User Experience (Gowases T, Bednarik R, Tukiainen M)

Tersia Gowases, Roman Bednarik (blog) and Markku Tukiainen at the Department of Computer Science and Statistics, University of Joensuu, Finland got a paper published in the proceedings for the 16th International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE).

"We did a simple questionnaire-based analysis. The results of the analysis show some promises for implementing gaze-augmented problem-solving interfaces. Users of gaze-augmented interaction felt more immersed than the users of other two modes - dwell-time based and computer mouse. Immersion, engagement, and user-experience in general are important aspects in educational interfaces; learners engage in completing the tasks and, for example, when facing a difficult task they do not give up that easily. We also did analysis of the strategies, and we will report on those soon. We could not attend the conference, but didn’t want to disappoint eventual audience. We thus decided to send a video instead of us. " (from Romans blog)




Abstract
"The possibilities of eye-tracking technologies in educational gaming are seemingly endless. The question we need to ask is what the effects of gaze-based interaction on user experience, strategy during learning and problem solving are. In this paper we evaluate the effects of two gaze based input techniques and mouse based interaction on user experience and immersion. In a between-subject study we found that although mouse interaction is the easiest and most natural way to interact during problemsolving, gaze-based interaction brings more subjective immersion. The findings provide a support for gaze interaction methods into computer-based educational environments." Download paper as PDF.


Some of this research has also been presented within the COGAIN association, see:
  • Gowases Tersia (2007) Gaze vs. Mouse: An evaluation of user experience and planning in problem solving games. Master’s thesis May 2, 2007. Department of Computer Science, University of Joensuu, Finland. Download as PDF

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