Enhancement of Pointing Towards Non-Haptic Augmented Reality Interfaces by Increasing the Arm Position Sense

Abstract

Interactive user interfaces in head-mounted Augmented Reality environments are not always projected onto a physical surface. However, operating such free-floating interfaces by touch gestures is challenging because they do not provide haptic feedback. Considering a pointing gesture, in this work we present a user study evaluating the benefits of increasing the arm position sense for operating non-haptic interface. Our findings confirm that haptic feedback is required and show that an increased arm sense compensates for the lack of haptic feedback. The results suggest that applying 0.3 times of the pointing arm’s weight significantly speeds up direct object selection for free-floating interfaces. We also show that the correction phase of the underlying pointing movement is affected by boosting the arm sense.