Virtual environment training on mobile devices

Abstract

Over 100 million tablet computers have been sold in the last three years. They now have the computing power of a state-of-the-art laptop of just a few years ago. This computing power and market saturation allows them to become viable virtual environment (VE) trainers. Tablets have a different set of input modalities and user expectations, which need to be taken into careful consideration when a VE trainer is designed. The authors developed a VE call for fire (CFF) trainer and explored the processes necessary to make it successful. In order to utilize tablet hardware to its full potential, the authors devised the Window to the World (W2W) paradigm as it applies to a mobile device. The authors tablet CFF trainer, Supporting Arms TrainerMobile (SAT-M), was compared to the Marine Corps current laptop CFF system, ObserverSim. Despite being in early development, participants with and without CFF experience overwhelmingly preferred SAT-M (p=0.002). Reasons included the ability of W2W to mimic real world physical motion, an easier to use interface, and a decrease in extraneous cognitive load.