Exploring collaboration with group pointer interaction

Enabling group collaboration is important in computer graphics today. We have developed a framework that supports multiple pointing devices to explore the collaborative utility of multiple mice and laser pointer interaction in graphical environments. Because most pointing device comparisons are done in the context of single user performance, very little is known about the affordances of collaborating with multiple pointing devices. We present an experimental comparison of mouse pointer to laser pointer interaction in a problem-solving task involving groups of one, two, and three people. We show that collaborative performance is largely orthogonal to motor performance and that the interaction patterns are dependent on the task and on the group size. This suggests that the collaborative characteristics of a pointing device are just as important as the physical characteristics that are usually given the most attention, such as precision and accuracy.