The effect of damping in an input device on human positioning performance

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of damping in an input device on performance in a target acquisition task. In an experiment with 21 participants, five levels of damping were tested in the range of 0 to 10 Ns/m. Contrary to our expectation, the time required to acquire a target decreased as the damping value increased. The reduction in completion time was not caused by an increase in velocity, but by a decrease in the overshoot rate. It is therefore concluded that, unlike previous beliefs, some amount of damping in an input device can be beneficial to user performance. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.