Effects of expertise, mapping and tutorial format on user experience when gesturing with the Nintendo Wii

Abstract

Based on a controlled experiment, we address understanding how users interact gesturally with the Nintendo Wiimote. Twenty-four participants, half novice and half expert, were filmed playing the game Wario Ware: Smooth Moves. We illustrate the gap between the supposed intuitiveness of the Wiimote and real Wiimote usage. Indeeed, unsurprisingly, experts perform better at making new gestures and become competent earlier than novices. Our study explains the mismatch between the Wiimote's reactions and novices' intuitions. We found that strong direct mapping from physical gesture to virtual gesture (using lexico-graphic primes) facilitates players' manipulation of the Wiimote. However, the player's level influenced their preference for particular games: novices prefer to be helped by lexical primes whereas experts do not.