A Comparison of Five User Interface Devices Designed for Point-of-Sale in the Retail Industry

Abstract

Although human performance on keyboards, pointing devices, and touch screens in the desktop environment has been studied and reported to the extent that the results can be used to determine productivity rates from those devices, little research has been conducted on devices used in controlled environments, like that of point-of-sale in the retail industry. While previous devices available for user interaction in this environment have been 2×20 displays and industry specific keyboards, current technology has moved the industry to implement CRTs, LCDs, full keyboards, touch screens and uniquely designed devices like the NCR DynaKey, an integrated LCD, keypad and dynamically assignable function keys. A full understanding of human performance on these devices was required to aid retailers in cost justifying their investment in them. Laboratory research was conducted to compare performance of basic point-of-sale tasks on a CRT with 56-key keyboard, 3 versions of an LCD touch screen, and the NCR DynaKey. Participants performed keying tasks, item modification tasks, a combination of item modification and scanning, and the same combination of item modification and scanning with a secondary monitoring task imposed. Time and error rates showed significant differences among the user interface devices for each of the task requirements in this research. Overall, mechanically keyed numeric entry was superior to touch screen numeric entry, mechanical keys were more advantageous with increased skill levels, and the integration of input mechanism and display as well as direct mapping between input and display enhanced performance.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bailey

R.W.

(1989). Human Performance Engineering: Using Human Factors/Ergonomics to Achieve Computer System Usability. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall

Beringer

(1989). Touch panel sampling strategies and keypad performance comparisons. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 33rd Annual Meeting (71–75). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society

Boff

K. R.

Lincoln

J. E.

(1988b). Keyboards and keysets: Effects of key size, force, displacement, and feedback on keying performance (Tech. Engineering Data Compendium: Human Perception and Performance, 12.410). Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH: AAMRL

Buxton

(1986). There's more to interaction than meets the eye. Some issues in manual input. In Norman

Draper

(Eds.), User Centered Design (pp. 319–337). Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum

Card

S. K.

Moran

T. P.

Newell

A. P.

(1983). The Psychology of Human Computer Interaction. New Jersey: Erlbaum Associates

Gopher

Kimchi

(1987). Perceptual and motor determinants of efficient data entry. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 31st Annual Meeting (pp. 71–75). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society

Karat

McDonald

J. E.

Anderson

(1986). A comparison of menu selection techniques: Touch panel, mouse and keyboard. Int. J. Man-Machine Studies, 25, 73–88

Landauer

T. K.

Nachbar

D. W.

(1985). Selection from alphabetic and numeric menu trees using a touch screen: breadth, depth, and width. Human Factors in Computer Systems Proceedings, San Francisco, CA

Muratore

D.A.

(1987). Human performance aspects of cursor control devices. MITRE Corporation Working Paper 6321. Houston, TX

10.

Plaisant

Sears

(1992). Touch screen interfaces for alphanumeric data entry. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 36th Annual Meeting (pp. 293–297). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society

11.

Sears

Plaisant

Shneiderman

(1990). A new era for touch screen applications: high precision, dragging icons, and refined feedback (Tech. Draft Report). Maryland: University of Maryland, Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory