HOBS: head orientation-based selection in physical spaces

Abstract

Emerging head-worn computing devices can enable interactions with smart objects in physical spaces. We present the iterative design and evaluation of HOBS -- a Head-Orientation Based Selection technique for interacting with these devices at a distance. We augment a commercial wearable device, Google Glass, with an infrared (IR) emitter to select targets equipped with IR receivers. Our first design shows that a naive IR implementation can outperform list selection, but has poor performance when refinement between multiple targets is needed. A second design uses IR intensity measurement at targets to improve refinement. To address the lack of natural mapping of on-screen target lists to spatial target location, our third design infers a spatial data structure of the targets enabling a natural head-motion based disambiguation. Finally, we demonstrate a universal remote control application using HOBS and report qualitative user impressions.