The Impact of Comfortable Viewing Positions on Smart TV Gestures

Whereas gesture elicitation studies for TV interaction assume that participants adopt an upright, frontal viewingposition, we asked 21 participants to hold a natural, comfortableviewing position, the posture they adopt when watching TVat home. By involving a broad selection of users regardingage, profession, our study targets a higher ecological validitythan existing studies. Agreements rates were lower than existingstudies using an upright, frontal viewing position. Participantsexperienced problems due to (1) having to use their slave handinstead of their dominant hand, (2) being in a certain orientationwith their head making it more difficult to perform some physicalmovements, and (3) being hindered in their movement by thesofa there lay on. Since each person may have a differentposition inducing different gestures due to the aforementionedproblems, the effect of comfortable viewing position is analyzedby comparison to gestures for a frontal position.