Evaluating a multimodal remote control: The interplay between user experience and usability

This paper describes a study comparing two remote controls (unimodal vs. multimodal) for a TV and movie entertainment system. It was investigated if multimodality actually enhances a system's usability and improves its user experience. Additionally individual differences were taken into account (gender and age). The results show that multimodality improves user experience despite clear differences in usability. Furthermore it was shown that multimodal interfaces are actually providing universal access: The different user groups showed only slight differences when interacting with the multimodal remote control.