A study of haptic linear and pie menus in a 3D fish tank VR environment

New pop-up menu styles such as pie menus and marking menus have proven to be measurably faster and more accurate in mouse and pen-based interfaces. These characteristics suggest that they may also be useful for 3D haptically enhanced environments. This paper reports on our development and evaluation of a pie menu style and two types of linear menu styles. All utilize force to aid the user in option selection and activation. Our evaluation results show that selection using the pie menu is considerably faster and more accurate than both types of linear menu. Selection using push-through or exceed border methods was found to be superior to conventional button selection. We conclude that pop-up pie menus, with the right combination of selection method and assistive forces, can provide an excellent solution to providing menu choices in 3D haptic environments and that considering speed accuracy tradeoffs is important in making design decisions.