• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.1-10
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• 2005

The primary objective of this study is to design input methods for assisting button selection tasks on a PDA screen. Familiar methods in the existing computing environments were investigated to develop aiding methods. Factors manipulated in the experiment included aiding method, button size, and users' prior experience with PDAs. A total of sixteen participants examined the usability of button selection tasks. Two types of button selection tasks were used as experimental tasks; one was selecting a target button, and the other was selecting multiple target buttons consecutively. The results showed that the aiding method and the button size had significant effects on the subjective satisfaction as well as the performance. In addition, users' prior experience with PDAs affected the performance significantly. The interaction between the aiding method and the button size was found to have significant effects on the performance. However, the interaction effect between the button size and the PDA experience was significant on the task performance time only for the multiple button selection tasks. Design considerations were proposed based on the experimental results. These can be applied to the PDA interaction design to make the PDAs more usable.