Understanding Visual Feedback in Large-Display Touchless Interactions: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Touchless interactions synthesize input and output from physically disconnected motor and display spaces without any haptic feedback. In the absence of any haptic feedback, touchless interactions primarily rely on visual cues, but properties of visual feedback remain unexplored. This paper systematically investigates how large-display touchless interactions are affected by (1) types of visual feedback—discrete, partial, and continuous; (2) alternative forms of touchless cursors; (3) approaches to visualize target-selection; and (4) persistent visual cues to support out-of-range and drag-and-drop gestures. Results suggest that continuous was more effective than partial visual feedback; users disliked opaque cursors, and efficiency did not increase when cursors were larger than display artifacts’ size. Semantic visual feedback located at the display border improved users’ efficiency to return within the display range; however, the path of movement echoed in drag-and-drop operations decreased efficiency. Our findings contribute key ingredients to design suitable visual feedback for large-display touchless environments.