Surface vs Motion Gestures for Mobile Augmented Reality

Surface gestures have been the dominant form of interaction for mobile devices with touchscreen. From our survey of current consumer mobile Augmented Reality (AR) applications, we found that these applications also adopted the surface gestures metaphor as their interaction technique. However, we believe that designers should be able to utilize the affordance of the three-dimensional interaction space that AR provides. We compared two interaction techniques of surface and motion gestures in a Pokemon GO-liked mobile AR game that we developed. Ten participants experienced both techniques to capture three sizes of Pokemon. The comparison examined the two types of gestures in terms of accuracy, game experience, and subjective ratings on goodness, ease of use, and engagement. It was found that the motion gesture provided better engagement and game experience, while the surface gesture was more accurate and easier to use.