Exploring Intuitiveness of Metaphor-Based Gestures for UAV Navigation

We investigate how the use of metaphors supports the intuitiveness of gesture input vocabularies for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) navigation. We compare gesture sets constituting a single metaphor to gesture sets that are based on mixed metaphors in terms of their respective intuitiveness. To this end, we implemented a 3D simulator in order to check how well novice users steer a UAV without knowing the valid gestures, using only a hint on the underlying metaphor. We compared their task completion time (indirect assessment of intuitiveness) with the one achieved after studying a gesture set that consists of gestures from several metaphors. We analyzed users' feedback reflected in questionnaires (direct assessment of intuitiveness) to further compare single metaphor gesture sets with mixed metaphors gesture sets. The results of the study support our hypothesis that a metaphor-based approach is an expedient means for gesture-based UAV navigation.