Which One is Better? Information Navigation Techniques for Spatially Aware Handheld Displays

Information navigation techniques for handheld devices support interacting with large virtual spaces on small displays, for example finding targets on a large-scale map. Since only a small part of the virtual space can be shown on the screen at once, typical interfaces allow for scrolling and panning to reach off-screen content. Spatially aware handheld displays sense their position and orientation in physical space in order to provide a corresponding view in virtual space. We implemented various one-handed navigation techniques for camera-tracked spatially aware displays. The techniques are compared in a series of abstract selection tasks that require the investigation of different levels of detail. The tasks are relevant for interfaces that enable navigating large scale maps and finding contextual information on them. The results show that halo is significantly faster than other techniques. In complex situations zoom and halo show comparable performance. Surprisingly, the combination of halo and zooming is detrimental to user performance.