Evaluating the Wiimote as a musical controller

The Nintendo Wiimote is growing in popularity with mu-sicians as a controller. This mode of use is an adaptationfrom its intended use as a game controller, and requiresevaluation of its functions in a musical context in orderto understand its possibilities and limits. Drawing on Hu-man Computer Interaction methodology, we assessed thecore musical applications of the Wiimote and designeda usability experiment to test them. 17 participants tookpart, performing musical tasks in four contexts: trigger-ing; precise and expressive continuous control; and ges-ture recognition. Interviews and empirical evidence wereutilised to probe the device’s limitations and its creativestrengths. This study should help potential users to planthe Wiimote’s employment in their projects, and should beuseful as a case study in HCI evaluation of musical con-trollers.