Evaluation of user support of a hemispherical sub-display with GUI pointing functions

In this paper, we discuss the effectiveness of a new human interface device for PC user support. Recently, as the Internet utilization rate has increased every year, the usage of PCs by elderly people has also increased in Japan. However, the digital divide between elderly people and PC beginners has widened. To eliminate this digital divide, we consider improving the users' operability and visibility as our goal. We propose a new hemispherical humancomputer-interface device for PCs, which integrates a hemispherical subdisplay and a pointing device. Then we evaluate the interface device in terms of its effectiveness of operability and visibility. As seen from the analyses of a subjective evaluation, our interface device obtained good impressions results for both elderly people and PC beginners.