Lair, UAV’s, and the Challenge of Using Gestural Controls
October 7th, 2007There’s a review of the PS3 game “Lair” that ties into some of our research at GMU. Check the review: 
“Lair is a beautiful fantasy-action game with a good story and extraordinary music.Too bad it’s virtually unplayable.
This is because the Sony PlayStation 3 exclusive is one of the most difficult video games to control in recent memory.”
Ouch.
It seems that use of the six axis controller that leverages gestural control increases the difficulty of controlling your avatar (in this case, a dragon) in the air.
This isn’t completely suprising - several papers have noted that gestural control may be inappropriate for more complex actions. This suggests that complex, symbolic actions should be mapped to specific buttons or keys. Fair enough - no one wants to have to perform a complete loop with the controller when a “loop” button would suffice. But do the gestural control problems seen with games like Lair translate into usability problems across all flight paradigms?
We’re currently investigating the use of gestural controls as a method of UAV control. While automation is used with larger UAV’s, smaller UAVs can be hand flown for precision control. We’re currently evaluating the use of joystick versus two different types of gestural control using a flight game (blazing angels).
Interestingly, early results indicate that users leveraging the gestural controls may be able to perform more accurately than their counterparts using joystick controls. Which leads to the interesting question of exactly what symbolic actions should be encoded in button presses. When we’re maneuvering around a 3 Dimensional space, when is maneuvering appropriate (per our study) and when is it not (like Lair?)
More on this as our research continues…
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