Multi-touch mobile devices are now commonly used in any area, including education. In this context we focus on applications for 3D geometry learning in primary schools. Manipulating a 3D scene based on a 2D input touch space is one key challenge of such applications for pupils. In this paper we present the results of an exploratory experimentation with pupils. We compare three different interaction techniques for rotating a 3D scene based on different interaction metaphors by using: multi-touch input, movements of the tablet captured with a gyroscope sensor and movements of the head captured by a camera-based head tracking. We ran the exploratory experiment with 28 pupils in a primary school to compare these three techniques by considering the performance and the subjective preferences. Results indicate worst performance for head-tracking and similar performance for multi-touch input and gyroscope-based movement. Qualitative results indicate participant preference for multi-touch interaction.
['David Bertolo', 'Laurence Nigay', 'Sébastien Pelurson', 'Robin Vivian']
Exploratory experimentation of three techniques for rotating a 3D scene by primary school students