RESUMO
A balance between portability and usability made the 10.1â³ diagonal screens popular in the Mobile PC market (e.g., 10.1â³ mini-notebooks/netbooks, convertible/hybrid ultraportables); yet no academic research rationalizes this phenomenon. This study investigated the size effects of display and input devices of 4 mini-notebooks (netbooks) ranged in size on their performances in 2 simple and 3 complex applied tasks. It seemed that the closer the display and/or input devices (touchpad/touchscreen/keyboard) sizes to those sizes of a generic notebook, the shorter the operation times (there was no certain phenomenon for the error rates). With non-significant differences, the 10.1â³ and 8.9â³ mini-notebooks (netbooks) were as fast as the 11.6â³ one in almost all the tasks, except for the 8.9â³ one in the typing tasks. The 11.6â³ mini-notebook (netbook) was most preferred; while the difference in the satisfactions was not significant between the 10.1â³ and 11.6â³ ones but between the 7â³ and 11.6â³ ones.
Assuntos
Computadores de Mão/normas , Adulto , Desenho de Equipamento , Ergonomia , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Microcomputadores/normas , Interface Usuário-Computador , Adulto JovemRESUMO
This study investigates the relationships of the following 5 factors with commonly-used task patterns: 4 (2 existing and 2 newly-designed) built-in cursor input devices of notebook PCs, usage experiences, genders, sensitivity of cursor movements, and 5 tasks of input applications (including click, drag-drop, click-select, select-drag-drop, and type-select-click). This experiment reveals that there are significant differences among these factors in the operating times and/or error rates of particular tasks. Although somewhat influenced by the task patterns, the results show that the touchpad with the cursor-tracking pad located on the bottom-center and the right and left buttons on the bottom-left beneath the keyboard, which avoids ulnar and radial deviation and hindrance of text-entry-pointer-manipulation switching, leads to higher performance and preference, while the trackpoint leads to lower performance and preference. In addition, the touchpads with sensitivity values of 10 and 12 for cursor movement are preferred over those with the value of 8.
Assuntos
Periféricos de Computador , Comportamento do Consumidor , Análise e Desempenho de Tarefas , Interface Usuário-Computador , Adulto , Análise de Variância , Desenho de Equipamento , Ergonomia , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Tato , Adulto JovemRESUMO
The size of a netbook plays an important role in its success. Somehow, the viewing area on screen and ability to type fast were traded off for portability. To further investigate, this study compared the performances of different-sized touchpads, touchscreens, and keyboards of four-sized netbooks for five application tasks. Consequently, the 7" netbook was significantly slower than larger netbooks in all the tasks except the 8.9" netbook touchpad (successive selecting and clicking) or keyboard tasks. Differences were non-significant for the operating times among the 8.9", 10.1", and 11.6" netbooks in all the tasks except between the 8.9" and 11.6" netbooks in keyboards tasks. For error rates, device-type effects rather than size effects were significant. Gender effects were not significant for operating times in all the tasks but for error rates in touchscreen (multi-direction touching) and keyboard tasks. Considering size effects, the 10.1" netbooks seemed to optimally balance between portability and productivity.