A Comparison of Five User Interface Devices Designed for Point-of-Sale in the Retail Industry

Although human performance on keyboards, pointing devices, and touch screens in the desktop environment has been studied and reported to the extent that the results can be used to determine productivity rates from those devices, little research has been conducted on devices used in controlled environments, like that of point-of-sale in the retail industry. While previous devices available for user interaction in this environment have been 2×20 displays and industry specific keyboards, current technology has moved the industry to implement CRTs, LCDs, full keyboards, touch screens and uniquely designed devices like the NCR DynaKey, an integrated LCD, keypad and dynamically assignable function keys. A full understanding of human performance on these devices was required to aid retailers in cost justifying their investment in them. Laboratory research was conducted to compare performance of basic point-of-sale tasks on a CRT with 56-key keyboard, 3 versions of an LCD touch screen, and the NCR DynaKey. Participants performed keying tasks, item modification tasks, a combination of item modification and scanning, and the same combination of item modification and scanning with a secondary monitoring task imposed. Time and error rates showed significant differences among the user interface devices for each of the task requirements in this research. Overall, mechanically keyed numeric entry was superior to touch screen numeric entry, mechanical keys were more advantageous with increased skill levels, and the integration of input mechanism and display as well as direct mapping between input and display enhanced performance.

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Designing Touch Screen Numeric Keypads: Effects of Finger Size, Key Size, and Key Spacing

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/107118139704100180 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 41 (1) ◽

pp. 360-364 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Brenda Scott ◽

Vincent Conzola

Keyword(s):

Gender Differences ◽

Real Estate ◽

User Interfaces ◽

Touch Screen ◽

Design Guidelines ◽

Error Rates ◽

Point Of Sale ◽

Males And Females ◽

Touch Screens ◽

Speed And Accuracy

Designing numeric keypads for point-of-sale devices to optimize keying speed and accuracy while efficiently utilizing touch screen real estate is a challenge. Existing design guidelines for touch screens are applicable to only specific classes of devices and fail to consider user variables such as finger size. The present study investigated keying speed and error rates for various keypad configurations in a simulated retail keying task. Finger sizes were taken into account. Results support the use of compressed (2 mm or less) interkey spacing in keypad designs. No significant effects of key size were found. Gender differences in keying speed and accuracy were explained by finger size differences between males and females. Implications for the design of touch screen user interfaces in point-of-sale applications are discussed.

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A Study of Human Pointing Features on Touch-Screens -Age Effect, Difference by Gender, and Difference in Direction-

Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics ◽

10.20965/jrm.2007.p0715 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 19 (6) ◽

pp. 715-723 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Masanobu Komazaki ◽

◽

Masanori Idesawa

Keyword(s):

User Interfaces ◽

Dynamic Properties ◽

Movement Time ◽

Touch Screen ◽

Practice Effect ◽

Touch Screens ◽

And Gender ◽

Set Up ◽

Time Required ◽

Interface Devices

We set up guidelines for designing graphic user interfaces (GUI), e.g., software-keyboards, for touch screens easier to used than conventional input (or interface) devices for IT systems such as keyboards and mice. We studied aging and gender differences in the dynamic properties of user pointing on a touch screen. We obtained the following results: (1) Standard Fitts’law did not hold very well when subjects repeated pointing using one finger between two targets close together on the touch screen. Movement-Time (MT) -the time required for pointing- increased linearly with the index of difficulty (ID) - the ratio of distance between targets (D) to target size (S). (2) Neither α -the ratio of the increase of MT to ID- nor β -MT when ID is 0- differed significantly between men and women. (3) α took almost the same value in older, middle-aged, and younger subjects, whereas β differed significantly between these groups. β increased linearly with age. (4) α and β did not differ significantly between left-right and depth in pointing. (5) The practice effect reduced the dispersion of α and β.

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Humanoid Robots: Useful or Useless?

Compass Journal of Learning and Teaching ◽

10.21100/compass.v7i11.225 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 7 (11) ◽

Author(s):

Richard C Seals

Keyword(s):

User Interface ◽

Humanoid Robot ◽

Touch Screen ◽

Humanoid Robots ◽

Potential Usefulness

The potential usefulness of a humanoid robot (Robothespian) was investigated by a group of six MSc students who chose to use this system for one of their oral assignments. A variety of methodologies were used by the student ranging from treating the Robothepsian mostly as a machine to an apparently fully interactive live conversation. The humanoid robot proved to be an interesting and stimulating approach but it did have problems with the user interface used (touch screen display) and that there was only one available.

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Time-Windows

Advances in Social Networking and Online Communities - Handbook of Research on Interactive Information Quality in Expanding Social Network Communications ◽

10.4018/978-1-4666-7377-9.ch004 ◽

2015 ◽

pp. 57-69

Author(s):

Andreas Kratky

Keyword(s):

User Interface ◽

Distributed Computing ◽

User Behavior ◽

Time Windows ◽

Large Percentage ◽

Large Format ◽

Spatially Distributed ◽

Touch Screens ◽

Spatial Problems

A large percentage of computing tasks in our contemporary environment are spatial problems carried out on mobile or spatially distributed computing devices. In this chapter, the authors evaluate if and how the commonly established metaphor of a windowed user interface may be adapted in order to suit contemporary usability needs. The study observes user behavior and interactions with a set of large-format touch screens in order to assess user's ability to integrate their interpretation and operation with the displayed information across multiple, spatially distributed screens.

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Using Pinching Gesture to Relate Applications Running on Discrete Touch-Screen Devices

International Journal of Creative Interfaces and Computer Graphics ◽

10.4018/ijcicg.2013010101 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 1-20 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Takashi Ohta ◽

Jun Tanaka

Keyword(s):

User Interface ◽

Mobile Devices ◽

Touch Screen ◽

User Experiences ◽

Touch Screen Devices ◽

As If

The authors propose the use of a pinching gesture for relating the applications running on discrete mobile devices. The gesture is realized by swiping the touch-screen of two annexed mobile devices as if pinching them together. The authors believe that this user interface can create new user experiences of multiple-screen usages, especially by designing the applications’ content to react instantly to the connection and disconnection triggered by the gesture, and to make it happen even while applications are running in each device. The authors expect this interface to fulfill a great potential in inspiring application designers to conceive various ideas especially suited for visually fascinating contents that take advantage of the dynamic reconfigurable multi-display feature. To demonstrate that potential, the authors produced some sample applications. Herein, the authors explain the idea and details of the interface mechanism, and explain the design of sample applications.

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Supervisory Control of Multiple Robots: Human-Performance Issues and User-Interface Design

IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics Part C (Applications and Reviews) ◽

10.1109/tsmcc.2010.2056682 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 41 (4) ◽

pp. 435-454 ◽

Cited By ~ 81

Author(s):

Jessie Y. C. Chen ◽

Michael J. Barnes ◽

Michelle Harper-Sciarini

Keyword(s):

User Interface ◽

Supervisory Control ◽

Interface Design ◽

Human Performance ◽

User Interface Design ◽

Multiple Robots ◽

Performance Issues

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Evaluation of Algorithms for Combining Independent Data Sets in a Human Performance Expert System

Proceedings of the Human Factors Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/154193128703100728 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 31 (7) ◽

pp. 811-814

Author(s):

Valerie J. Gawron ◽

David J. Travale ◽

Colin Drury ◽

Sara Czaja

Keyword(s):

Reaction Time ◽

Expert System ◽

Human Performance ◽

Test Procedure ◽

Reaction Time Task ◽

Error Rates ◽

Task Completion ◽

Data Sets ◽

Independent Data ◽

Independent Variables

A major problem facing system designers today is predicting human performance in: 1) systems that have not yet been built, 2) situations that have not yet been experienced, and 3) situations for which there are only anecdotal reports. To address this problem, the Human Performance Expert System (Human) was designed. The system contains a large data base of equations derived from human performance research reported in the open literature. Human accesses these data to predict task performance times, task completion probabilities, and error rates. A problem was encountered when multiple independent data sets were relevant to one task. For example, a designer is interested in the effects of luminance and front size on number of reading errors. Two data sets exist in the literature: one examining the effects of luminance, the other, font size. The data in the two sets were collected at different locations with different subjects and at different times in history. How can the two data sets be combined to address the designer's problem? Four combining algorithms were developed and then tested in two steps. In step one, two reaction-time experiments were conducted: one to evaluate the effect the number of alternatives on reaction time; the second, signals per minute and number of displays being monitored. The four algorithms were used on the data from these two experiments to predict reaction time in the situation where all three independent variables are manipulated simultaneously. In step two of the test procedure, a third experiment was conducted. Subjects who had not participated in either Experiment One or Two performed a reaction-time task under the combined effects of all three independent variables. The predictions made from step one were compared to the actual empirical data collected in step two. The results of these comparisons are presented.

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A Lead-Lag Compensation Approach to Display/Control Gain for Touch Tablets

Proceedings of the Human Factors Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/154193128603000404 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 30 (4) ◽

pp. 332-336 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jane A. Becker ◽

Joel S. Greenstein

Keyword(s):

Human Performance ◽

Error Rates ◽

Continuous Control ◽

Acquisition Rate ◽

Variable Gain ◽

Control Gain ◽

Compensation Approach ◽

Display Control ◽

Speed Accuracy ◽

Lag Compensation

The display/control gain exhibited by a continuous control system strongly affects the human's ability to quickly and accurately operate the system. The primary objectives of this research were to develop and optimize a variable D/C gain that improves human performance with touch tablets. This variable gain moderates the speed-accuracy trade-off problem associated with traditional D/C gains. Empirical results indicate that a lead-lag compensator increased the target acquisition rate relative to a traditional D/C gain system. Error rates were low with both systems, but were greater with lead-lag compensation than in an uncompensated system. Tablet size did not appear to significantly affect performance.

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