Pointing in entertainment-oriented environments: appreciation versus performance

Multimedia applications for consumer entertainment often employ a point-and-select interaction style, borrowed from more task-oriented computer applications. The environment of use and the pointing devices involved are so different, however, that a higher importance should be attributed to the users' appreciation of the pointing device than to its efficiency or any other objective performance measure. We set up an experiment to investigate how appreciation and performance measures relate. The experiment involved six different input devices, two CD-i titles and 16 subjects making both voluntary and prescribed cursor control movements. For the mouse-like pointing devices we obtained a Fitts ' Law-like dependence on target width and target distance. Concerning the peiformance measures we found that neither time-to-target nor relative-path-length on its own is a reliable indicator of users 'appreciation. Together, however, they might explain appreciation scores to a considerable extent.