Beyond pointing and clicking: how do newer interaction modalities affect user engagement?

Modern interfaces offer users a wider range of interaction modalities beyond pointing and clicking, such as dragging, sliding, zooming, and flipping through images. But, do they offer any distinct psychological advantages? We address this question with an experiment (N = 128) testing the relative contributions made by six interaction modalities (zoom-inout, drag, slide, mouse-over, cover-flow and click-to-download) to user engagement with identical content. Data suggest that slide is better at aiding memory than the other modalities, whereas cover-flow and mouse-over generate more user actions. Mouse-over, click-to-download, and zoom-inout tend to foster more favorable attitudes among power users, whereas cover-flow and slide generate more positive attitudes among non-power users. Design implications are discussed.