User Experience and Perceived Usability of Traditional and Multimodal Interfaces for Scientific Information Seeking

The current study was carried out to investigate users’ preferences for different input modalities (i.e., mouse or gaze) when involved in scientific information-seeking tasks. According to the task that they had to perform (i.e., abstract opening, gaze bookmarking, or keyword highlighting), participants were randomly assigned to three different conditions. They had to carry out the same task twice with both means of interaction (i.e., mouse or gaze); input modalities were counterbalanced across participants. The findings showed that users were faster and perceived the system as more pleasant when they performed the tasks using their gaze. However, when participants controlled the system with a more familiar mouse interface, they perceived the system as more accurate, easy to use, and efficient. Future studies will evaluate how increasing users’ familiarity with alternative input modalities (i.e., gaze) can affect their perception of accuracy, easiness, and efficiency.