Gazing with pEYE: New concepts in eye typing - Semantic Scholar
Gazing with pEYE: New concepts in eye typing Anke Huckauf∗ Bauhaus-University Weimar
Mario Urbina† Bauhaus-University Weimar
Abstract
containing all letters within five groups plus a sixth group of special characters. Gazing on one piece opens another circle which now contains each element in one piece. A gaze into one piece serves to type the respective character into a text window in the lower part of the screen. Hence, each letter is associated with a certain gaze path.
Eye typing applications like a virtual keyboard are often straining to use. We developed various interfaces based on different theoretical ideas. In Iwrite, letters are selected by gazing towards the outer frame of the monitor. This should minimize the error rate, but to the disadvantage of speed. In a dynamic concept, StarWrite, moving letters are to be dragged directly onto the text window. The third implementation pEYEwrite is based on marking or pie menus which have already been shown to be powerful tools in mouse control. Preliminary testings demonstrated a superiority of pEYEwrite over the other concepts. Not only did pEYEwrite produce the fastest text entry, but also the largest increases in performance over several sessions. Data indicate that pie menus must be regarded as a helpful and powerful tool in various gaze control applications.
2
Within a pilot study, all three methods of text entry were informally investigated. The user’s task was to write a sentence including all letters of the alphabet at least once as fast and correct as possible during five consecutive days. These preliminary data show only few error rates when using Iwrite; a fact probably due to the clear and easy letter selection method. However, there was only a small increase in typing velocity with increasing usage. This and subjective measures suggest that Iwrite is well suited for novice users but will rapidly loose its attractiveness with increasing experience. Comparable overall performance was obtained with StarWrite. But, due to some bugs in the implementation, performance in StarWrite was hardly comparable. The most promising tool turned out to be pEYEwrite. All users showed improving performance with increasing experience. Also, subjective measures concerning fatigue or preferences indicate a well-performing application. In a currently running more fine-grained user test we examine features of the applications in more detail. In addition, we include a virtual keyboard as well as a version of Dasher as comparison baselines.
CR Categories: H.5.2 [Information Systems]: User Interfaces, Ergonomics, Evaluation/Methodology, Graphical user interfaces (GUI), User-centered design—; K.4.2 [Computing Milieux]: Computers and Society—Assistive technologies for persons with disabilities Keywords: gaze control, user interfaces, evaluation methodology, input devices.
1
Aims and Scope
The first eye typing applications were based on a virtual keyboard to be handled by gaze via dwell times. However, since Dasher has been introduced in 2002 by Ward and MacKay [Ward and MacKay 2002], it became clear that text entry via gaze control can become more exciting than simply waiting on virtual letter keys. Nevertheless, in spite of the innovative and creative ideas underlying Dasher, not all users are happy with Dasher. Several users claim that Dasher is dizzy and visually too claiming. Our goal was to develop new concepts for eye typing while getting rid off dwell times and presenting a less noisy screen than is necessary with Dasher. Three novel interfaces for text entry were developed. In Iwrite, the letters are arranged around a central text window on the screen. Each letter is typed by gazing at it and afterwards saccading towards the outer frame. This architecture facilitates proof-reading and should be easy to handle. However, it requires to drag the letters away from the text window. The selection metapher adopted in StarWrite requires to pick a letter and move it directly into the text window. In StarWrite, all letters appear on a semi-circle. The circle moves towards the observer, which means away from the text window at the bottom of the monitor. In pEYEwrite, all letters are presented within a two-layer pie menu (also known as marking menus, e.g. [Hopkins 1991]). That is, gazing into the circle opens a larger pie ∗ e-mail:
Methods and Results
Figure 1: pEYEwrite As our preliminary results strongly suggest, pie menus must be regarded as a helpful tool not only for mouse controlled applications, but also for eye typing or other applications in gaze based systems like, for example, desk-top control.
Acknowledgements Thanks to Daniel Bierwirth, Petros Kapakos, Nicole Magiera, David Riedel, and Katja Schllner for assistance in implementation and data collection.
[email protected]
References
† e-mail:[email protected]
Copyright © 2007 by the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from Permissions Dept, ACM Inc., fax +1 (212) 869-0481 or e-mail [email protected]. APGV 2007, Tübingen, Germany, July 26–27, 2007. © 2007 ACM 978-1-59593-670-7/07/0007 $5.00
H OPKINS , D. 1991. The design and implementation of pie menus. they’re fast, easy, and self-revealing. Dr. Dobb’s Journal 16, 12, 16–26. WARD , D. J., AND M AC K AY, D. J. C. 2002. Fast hands-free writing by gaze direction. Nature 418, 6900, 838.
141
Mario Urbina† Bauhaus-University Weimar
Abstract
containing all letters within five groups plus a sixth group of special characters. Gazing on one piece opens another circle which now contains each element in one piece. A gaze into one piece serves to type the respective character into a text window in the lower part of the screen. Hence, each letter is associated with a certain gaze path.
Eye typing applications like a virtual keyboard are often straining to use. We developed various interfaces based on different theoretical ideas. In Iwrite, letters are selected by gazing towards the outer frame of the monitor. This should minimize the error rate, but to the disadvantage of speed. In a dynamic concept, StarWrite, moving letters are to be dragged directly onto the text window. The third implementation pEYEwrite is based on marking or pie menus which have already been shown to be powerful tools in mouse control. Preliminary testings demonstrated a superiority of pEYEwrite over the other concepts. Not only did pEYEwrite produce the fastest text entry, but also the largest increases in performance over several sessions. Data indicate that pie menus must be regarded as a helpful and powerful tool in various gaze control applications.
2
Within a pilot study, all three methods of text entry were informally investigated. The user’s task was to write a sentence including all letters of the alphabet at least once as fast and correct as possible during five consecutive days. These preliminary data show only few error rates when using Iwrite; a fact probably due to the clear and easy letter selection method. However, there was only a small increase in typing velocity with increasing usage. This and subjective measures suggest that Iwrite is well suited for novice users but will rapidly loose its attractiveness with increasing experience. Comparable overall performance was obtained with StarWrite. But, due to some bugs in the implementation, performance in StarWrite was hardly comparable. The most promising tool turned out to be pEYEwrite. All users showed improving performance with increasing experience. Also, subjective measures concerning fatigue or preferences indicate a well-performing application. In a currently running more fine-grained user test we examine features of the applications in more detail. In addition, we include a virtual keyboard as well as a version of Dasher as comparison baselines.
CR Categories: H.5.2 [Information Systems]: User Interfaces, Ergonomics, Evaluation/Methodology, Graphical user interfaces (GUI), User-centered design—; K.4.2 [Computing Milieux]: Computers and Society—Assistive technologies for persons with disabilities Keywords: gaze control, user interfaces, evaluation methodology, input devices.
1
Aims and Scope
The first eye typing applications were based on a virtual keyboard to be handled by gaze via dwell times. However, since Dasher has been introduced in 2002 by Ward and MacKay [Ward and MacKay 2002], it became clear that text entry via gaze control can become more exciting than simply waiting on virtual letter keys. Nevertheless, in spite of the innovative and creative ideas underlying Dasher, not all users are happy with Dasher. Several users claim that Dasher is dizzy and visually too claiming. Our goal was to develop new concepts for eye typing while getting rid off dwell times and presenting a less noisy screen than is necessary with Dasher. Three novel interfaces for text entry were developed. In Iwrite, the letters are arranged around a central text window on the screen. Each letter is typed by gazing at it and afterwards saccading towards the outer frame. This architecture facilitates proof-reading and should be easy to handle. However, it requires to drag the letters away from the text window. The selection metapher adopted in StarWrite requires to pick a letter and move it directly into the text window. In StarWrite, all letters appear on a semi-circle. The circle moves towards the observer, which means away from the text window at the bottom of the monitor. In pEYEwrite, all letters are presented within a two-layer pie menu (also known as marking menus, e.g. [Hopkins 1991]). That is, gazing into the circle opens a larger pie ∗ e-mail:
Methods and Results
Figure 1: pEYEwrite As our preliminary results strongly suggest, pie menus must be regarded as a helpful tool not only for mouse controlled applications, but also for eye typing or other applications in gaze based systems like, for example, desk-top control.
Acknowledgements Thanks to Daniel Bierwirth, Petros Kapakos, Nicole Magiera, David Riedel, and Katja Schllner for assistance in implementation and data collection.
[email protected]
References
† e-mail:[email protected]
Copyright © 2007 by the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from Permissions Dept, ACM Inc., fax +1 (212) 869-0481 or e-mail [email protected]. APGV 2007, Tübingen, Germany, July 26–27, 2007. © 2007 ACM 978-1-59593-670-7/07/0007 $5.00
H OPKINS , D. 1991. The design and implementation of pie menus. they’re fast, easy, and self-revealing. Dr. Dobb’s Journal 16, 12, 16–26. WARD , D. J., AND M AC K AY, D. J. C. 2002. Fast hands-free writing by gaze direction. Nature 418, 6900, 838.
141
