Map navigation with mobile devices: virtual versus physical movement with and without visual context

  • Authors:

  • Michael Rohs;Johannes Schöning;Martin Raubal;Georg Essl;Antonio Krüger

  • Affiliations:

  • Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany;University of Münster, Münster, Germany;University of California, Santa Barbara, CA;Deutsche Telekom Laboratories, TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany;University of Münster, Münster, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Multimodal interfaces
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

A user study was conducted to compare the performance of three methods for map navigation with mobile devices. These methods are joystick navigation, the dynamic peephole method without visual context, and the magic lens paradigm using external visual context. The joystick method is the familiar scrolling and panning of a virtual map keeping the device itself static. In the dynamic peephole method the device is moved and the map is fixed with respect to an external frame of reference, but no visual information is present outside the device's display. The magic lens method augments an external content with graphical overlays, hence providing visual context outside the device display. Here too motion of the device serves to steer navigation. We compare these methods in a study measuring user performance, motion patterns, and subjective preference via questionnaires. The study demonstrates the advantage of dynamic peephole and magic lens interaction over joystick interaction in terms of search time and degree of exploration of the search space.