"How do i line up?": Reducing mental transformations to improve performance

Abstract

Mobile devices and visual-spatial presentations of information are pervasive, especially for tasks in which the mobile device can be moved to close proximity of the task. This mobility allows the user to offload mental workload by allowing physical transformations of the device. In this study, we compared a fixed mobile device, a non-fixed mobile device, and a fixed desktop display to determine the effects imposed by the mental workload of transforming the frames of reference into alignment. Our results indicate that allowing the user to manipulate the device's position can influence performance by reducing the need for mental transformations. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.