Tilt-controlled mobile games: Velocity-control vs. position-control

We examined tilt-control for mobile gaming. An application was created using device tilt to move a virtual ball through a simple maze. The tilt of the device was mapped to ball movement in two ways: velocity-control and position-control. A user study with 12 participants compared the orders of control for performance (speed and accuracy), ease of use, and user preference. Results indicate that movement using position-control is about 16% faster than movement using velocity-control. On measures of accuracy, there was no significant difference between the two orders of control. Qualitative measures indicated no significant difference between the two orders of control on ease of use, although 10 of 12 participants indicated a preference for velocity-control (despite the better performance with position-control).