Quantifying Proactive and Reactive Button Input

When giving input with a button, users follow one of two strategies: (1) react to the output from the computer or (2) proactively act in anticipation of the output from the computer. We propose a technique to quantify reactiveness and proactiveness to determine the degree and characteristics of each input strategy. The technique proposed in this study uses only screen recordings and does not require instrumentation beyond the input logs. The likelihood distribution of the time interval between the button inputs and system outputs, which is uniquely determined for each input strategy, is modeled. Then the probability that each observed input/output pair originates from a specific strategy is estimated along with the parameters of the corresponding likelihood distribution. In two empirical studies, we show how to use the technique to answer questions such as how to design animated transitions and how to predict a player's score in real-time games.