Evaluating gaze and touch interaction and two feedback techniques on a large display in a shopping environment

Abstract

At Philips Research, an Intelligent Shop Window (ISW) was developed. With the ISW, a unique combination is made between a transparent display that is embedded in the window glass, and physical products presented in the shop window. In this paper, touch and gaze interaction with the large display in the ISW are investigated and evaluated. For sensing interfaces it is known that especially with gaze interaction, it is a challenge to communicate to the user that the system is ready and attending to the user, but also which part of the system the user can address. Therefore, two suitable feedback mechanisms for this interaction were designed and evaluated with users. The first was the 'polite products' concept, where products were placed on a turntable. When the user selects the product with either touch or gaze interaction, the product on the turntable turns towards the user. The second feedback method was a transparent light tile behind the products, which changed color when the product was selected. The evaluation results showed that the polite product concept was rated better than the light tile on almost every item related to hedonic values such as enjoyability and fun. Next to that it became clear that participants felt more in control when using touch interaction and that touch worked faster and more efficient than gaze interaction. However, gaze interaction was a fairly new and exotic interaction method for participants and they said they liked using gaze interaction. Especially the combination of gaze interaction with the polite products feedback method was very strong. © 2009 Springer.