Carnegie Mellon Research Ranks the SMART Board™ Interactive Whiteboard as Fastest, Most Accurate Way to Interact With Projected Information
Accessing information by pressing on board is 32 percent faster than using a conventional mouse
Calgary, AB --- May 13, 2002 --- SMART Technologies Inc.'s flagship product, the SMART Board interactive whiteboard, was the subject of a recent research study at Carnegie Mellon University. Interacting at a Distance: Measuring the Performance of Laser Pointers and Other Devices looked at different methods of selecting computer-based objects on large-screen projected displays. The SMART Board interactive whiteboard proved to be the fastest, most accurate method, beating out a conventional mouse, laser pointers and semantic snarfing (where the image is copied to a handheld device and the user interacts with the device's touchscreen using a stylus). The research concluded:
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The SMART Board [interactive whiteboard] device was the best in terms of speed and errors, with more than 50% fewer errors in 16% less time than the next best device in those categories.
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On the questionnaire at the end of the experiment, participants were asked to rank the four devices in order of their perceived performance. Participants correctly identified that the SMART Board [interactive whiteboard] performed the best, giving it an average ranking of 1.28 with 12 first-place votes.
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Participants were also asked to rate the devices for ease of use on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being easiest. Again, the SMART Board [interactive whiteboard] received the highest marks with an average rating of 4.75
These results are statistically significant (p<0.002).
This research was presented on April 3, 2002, at the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction conference. Researchers Brad Myers, Rishi Bhatnagar, Jeffrey Nichols, Choon Hong Peck, Dave Kong, Robert Miller and A. Chris Long, all from Carnegie Mellon University, presented the paper.
"Enabling users to interact directly with information in front of an audience has always been a key advantage of the SMART Board interactive whiteboard," says Nancy Knowlton, president and COO of SMART Technologies Inc. "With the findings of this research, we now have proof that the board is also the fastest, most accurate way to access that information."
For a copy of Interacting at a Distance, visit www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~pebbles/papers/pebbleslaserexp.pdf.
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