Direct Manipulation on the Virtual Workbench: Two Hands Aren't Always Better Than One

This paper reports on the investigation of the differential levels of effectiveness of various interaction techniques on a simple rotation and translation task on the virtual workbench. Manipulation time and number of collisions were measured for subjects using four device sets (unimanual glove, bimanual glove, unimanual stick, and bimanual stick). Participants were also asked to subjectively judge each device's effectiveness. Performance results indicated a main effect for device (better performance for users of the stick(s)), but not for number of hands. Subjective results supported these findings, as users expressed a preference for the stick(s).