Hierarchical Menu Selection with a Body-Centered Remote Interface

Menus are a key mechanism for organizing different commands in graphical user interfaces. Nowadays low-cost devices that allow using different interaction techniques in remote interfaces have become widespread. Nevertheless, their corresponding menus are direct adaptations from traditional ones. As a consequence, they are inaccurate and slow, and also produce tiredness. In this paper, we design, implement and evaluate a menu selection technique for remote interfaces, the Body Menu. This technique permits whole-body interaction and is specifically designed to take advantage of the proprioception sense. The Body Menu attaches virtual menu items to different parts of the body and selects them when the users reach these zones with their hands. We use the Microsoft Kinect to implement this system. Additionally, we compared it with the most representative menus, studied the best number of body parts to be used and analyzed how children interact with it.