Maria Uebbing-Rumke

Design and evaluation of a multi-touch interaction language for approach controllers

Since smartphones and tablets were introduced into consumer electronics, multi-touch technology has been increasingly used for professional purposes. The aim of our research was to determine whether approach controllers could also use gesture-based natural user interfaces for their work. We built a prototype that was evaluated against a comparable mouse interaction concept. In our preliminary study, five test persons were asked to guide air traffic in a realistic scenario with both the multi-touch and mouse mock-up. Usability and workload were assessed. The results revealed higher usability scores for the multi-touch mock-up, whereas the workload evaluation showed no clear trend for either interaction concept.