Peak Moments of Physical Mobile Interaction Techniques Completed Research Paper

Users are able to connect their mobile phones to nearby objects using four common physical mobile interaction techniques: pointing, touching, scanning, and typing manual input. A set of prior user studies has compared these techniques, but none of the comparison studies have included a more recent form of the pointing technique: image recognition. We investigate users' peak-moment experiences while using physical mobile interaction techniques, including image recognition, by applying the critical incident technique (CIT). As a result, we present a comprehensive categorization for sources of user perceptions, describe the differences between the techniques, and position image recognition among other techniques. Our study adds a source category - achievement - that prior comparison studies have not covered. Also, we discovered that control is a crucial issue for users, even though it is often understated in prior comparison studies.