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Chapter 6: A User Study
6.1 A Simple Task of Geometric Fit
A small pilot study was performed aimed at evoking comments from the users about the usefulness
of collision detection and response in a geometric fit task. For this first study I judged the system
not yet ready for a full-blown docking task. Instead, users were asked to fit two abstract models
together in a particular configuration. Figure 4 shows a photo of the two objects, a green triple ring
and a red E-shape, in their “docked” configuration.
Figure 4: Two objects in final position of geometric task
Each user was asked to perform the same positioning task twice, once with no collision detection
and once with collision detection turned on. The initial positions of the two objects had them
separated from each other and were the same for both trials. During the trial without collision
detection the user was asked to say when they thought that the objects were docked and not touching, and at that point collision detection was turned on. If the objects were touching, collision
detection was turned off again and the user was asked to make adjustments. This was repeated
until a valid position was reached. Both tasks were performed with the user wearing shuttered
glasses for stereo and both joystick boxes were available for object motion and change of view.