Information Processing Rate in Human-Computer Interaction

In human-computer interaction (HCI), the information processing procedure of human machine systems is assumed to follow an analogy to wireless information systems. With a normal distribution of input amplitudes, the information processing rate should reach its maximum, i.e. it should reflect the channel capacity of the information transmission system of the pointing task. Through a series of manipulated experiments, we observed the various performance situations which require varying degrees of accuracy and varying degrees of speed. The input hits distributions in different performance conditions were analyzed in detail. Through applying the different forms of Fitts' law formulations, we described the varying tendencies of the reciprocal of the task difficulty coefficient of Fitts' law in different performance conditions. Finally, we compared two Fitts' law formulations based on their ability to describe the information processing rate during tasks with different performance conditions.