The Effect of Dwell Time on Swipe-based Pie-Menu Navigation Efficiency

Authors

  • Alen Salkanovic University of Rijeka, Faculty of Engineering
  • Matija Stojkovic University of Rijeka, Faculty of Engineering
  • Sandi Ljubic University of Rijeka, Faculty of Engineering https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3456-8369

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3991/ijoe.v16i15.17763

Keywords:

pie menu, swipe-based interaction, dwell time, touchscreen mobile devices, remote experiment

Abstract


In this paper we present and analyze pie-menu implementation for touchscreen mobile devices which supports swipe-based navigation through deep hierarchical menu configurations. We propose a solution that synergistically encompasses important design features for a given context: radial menu visualization, semi-transparency, manual repositioning, occlusion awareness, and marking menu concept. From the menu navigation efficiency standpoint, dwell time represents one of the most influential factors in such a design. Reducing the time needed to automatically activate submenus could potentially provide faster navigation through the pie-menu hierarchy; however, short dwell times could make swipe-based interaction more error-prone, as unintentional item selections are then more probable. Therefore, we specifically investigate the effect of dwell time on navigation efficiency when using the proposed solution. A remotely administered experiment involving 36 participants was carried out in order to empirically evaluate different dwell time values. The interaction style, i.e. the way of holding a smartphone device, was also taken into account as an independent variable. We present the results of this empirical research, additionally tackling the interaction workload, usability attributes, and overall design considerations of the proposed solution. According to the obtained results, we argue that highly adaptable pie-menus could provide interaction benefits in the mobile touchscreen domain.

Downloads

Published

2020-12-15

How to Cite

Salkanovic, A., Stojkovic, M., & Ljubic, S. (2020). The Effect of Dwell Time on Swipe-based Pie-Menu Navigation Efficiency. International Journal of Online and Biomedical Engineering (iJOE), 16(15), pp. 4–22. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijoe.v16i15.17763

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 15 (2020)

Section

Papers

License

The submitting author warrants that the submission is original and that she/he is the author of the submission together with the named co-authors; to the extend the submission incorporates text passages, figures, data or other material from the work of others, the submitting author has obtained any necessary permission.
Articles in this journal are published under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC-BY What does this mean?). This is to get more legal certainty about what readers can do with published articles, and thus a wider dissemination and archiving, which in turn makes publishing with this journal more valuable for you, the authors.
By submitting an article the author grants to this journal the non-exclusive right to publish it. The author retains the copyright and the publishing rights for his article without any restrictions.