Investigating Interaction Techniques for State-of-the-Art Smartwatches

We present initial results from a comparative study targeting three different input techniques for smartwatches. We developed a prototype capable of two different mechanical input techniques, namely digital crown and rotatable bezel, as well as touch input. In a user study with 14 participants, we analyzed task completion time, error rate and perceived usability in a one-dimensional list selection task. Our results show that touch and digital crown are perceived as significantly more usable. Also, the digital crown technique is ranked significantly higher than the rotatable bezel in terms of user preference. Regarding task completion time, the rotatable bezel is significantly inferior to touch. In terms of error rate, no significant difference is observable. Overall, 9 of 14 participants preferred interaction with the digital crown.