| HCI and the older population | | BIBK | Full-Text | 1-3 | |
| Gill Whitney; Joy Goodman-Deane; Suzette Keith | |||
Keywords: Older people, Ageing, Research methodology, New technology | |||
| YouTube and intergenerational communication: the case of Geriatric1927 | | BIBAK | DOI | 5-20 | |
| Dave Harley; Geraldine Fitzpatrick | |||
| This paper presents a case study of a 79 year old video blogger called
'Geriatric1927', and his use of the video sharing website, YouTube. Analysis of
his first eight video blogs, and the subsequent text responses, reveals
opportunities of this medium for intergenerational contact, reminiscence,
reciprocal learning and co-creation of content, suggesting that older people
can be highly motivated to use computers for social contact. The paper
concludes by noting the importance of technologies that are socially engaging
and meaningful for older people, and pointing to ways in which the social life
of YouTube might be better promoted on its interface. Keywords: Intergenerational communication, YouTube, Video blog, Older people, Social
software | |||
| Representing older people: towards meaningful images of the user in design scenarios | | BIBAK | DOI | 21-32 | |
| Mark Blythe; Andy Dearden | |||
| Designing for older people requires the consideration of a range of design
problems, which may be related to difficult and sometimes highly personal
matters. Issues such as fear, loneliness, dependency, and physical decline may
be hard to observe or discuss in interviews. Pastiche scenarios and pastiche
personae are techniques that employ characters to create a space for the
discussion of new technological developments and user experience. This paper
argues that the use of fictional characters can help to overcome restrictive
notions of older people by disrupting designers' prior assumptions. In this
paper, we reflect on our experiences using pastiche techniques in two separate
technology design projects that sought to address the needs of older people. In
the first pastiche scenarios were developed by the designers of the system and
used as discussion documents with users. In the second pastiche personae were
used by groups of users themselves to generate scenarios which were scribed for
later use by the design team. We explore how the use of fictional characters
and settings can generate new ideas and undercut the potential in scenarios,
for weak characterisation of "the user" to permit scenario writers to fit
characters to technology rather than vice versa. To assist in future
development of pastiche techniques in designing for older people, we provide an
array of fictional older characters drawn from literary and popular culture. Keywords: Pastiche scenarios, Pastiche personae, Experience-centred design, Conceptual
design, Participatory design | |||
| Painting the ideal home: using art to express visions of technologically supported independent living for older people in north-east England | | BIBAK | DOI | 33-47 | |
| Paul Vickers; Linda Banwell; Susan Heaford; Fausto J. Sainz de Salces | |||
| This paper describes the investigation of the development of future
technological products to support older people in everyday living through the
agency of a community art group. Recent research has identified a number of
challenges facing designers seeking to use traditional participatory design
approaches to gather technology requirements data from older people. Here, a
project is described that sought to get a group of older people to think
creatively about their needs and desires for technological support through the
medium of paint. The artistic expression technique described in this article
allowed the identification of issues that had also been found by previous
research that used a range of different techniques. This indicates that the
approach shows promise, as it allows information to be gathered in an
environment that is comfortable and familiar using methods already known by the
participants and which they find enjoyable. It provides a complement (or
possible alternative) to standard protocols and has the potential benefit of
extracting even richer information as the primary task for participants is
enjoyable in its own right and is not associated with an interrogative process.
Furthermore, it is argued that some of the key risks of traditional approaches
are lessened or removed by the naturalistic setting of this approach. Keywords: HCI, Participatory design, Assistive technology, Art, Older people | |||
| Involving older people with dementia and their carers in designing computer based support systems: some methodological considerations | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 49-58 | |
| Arlene Astell; Norman Alm; Gary Gowans; Maggie Ellis; Richard Dye; Phillip Vaughan | |||
| Older people with dementia are a particularly challenging user group to
involve in the process of designing interactive systems that could assist them.
It may also be difficult to involve family caregivers of people with dementia,
as they are most likely to be older themselves and uncertain about technology.
Paid care staff, whilst younger, may be unclear about the benefits of
technology and lack confidence in their ability to incorporate it into their
work. Over the past 7 years, the authors of this paper have worked closely with
people with dementia, their families and professional care staff to develop and
evaluate a multimedia computer system to support communication between people
with dementia and caregivers. To achieve this, a number of user involvement
issues were addressed, ranging from legal and ethical considerations of working
with people with dementia to the reluctance of hard-pressed staff to add to
their workload for a research project. In addition, developing and conducting
evaluations and eliciting the views of people with dementia who have working
memory impairment plus additional cognitive and social difficulties emerged as
a central issue. A variety of approaches were explored within this project,
which are described in this paper, including familiarizing the whole team with
the unique difficulties posed by dementia, continuous confirmation of
participants' consent, and ways to measure enjoyment, engagement, and joint
interaction using observation. Keywords: Dementia, User centred design, Iterative design, Requirements gathering,
Evaluation | |||
| Practice, systems and technology for seniors | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 59-61 | |
| David Prendergast; Simon Roberts | |||
| This paper explores how research teams in Intel's Digital Health Group are
using ethnography to identify 'designable moments' -- spaces, times, objects,
issues and practices which suggest opportunities for appropriate interventions.
It argues that technology innovation should aim to incorporate the views,
experiences and practices of users from the start of the design process to
support independent living and develop culturally sensitive enhancements that
contribute towards wellbeing and a life of quality for local older populations. Keywords: Ageing, Healthcare, Ethnography, Design | |||
| Vocal interaction: beyond traditional automatic speech recognition | | BIB | DOI | 63-64 | |
| Sri Kurniawan; Adam J. Sporka; Susumu Harada | |||
| Vocal Telekinesis: towards the development of voice-physical installations | | BIBAK | DOI | 65-75 | |
| Sama'a Al Hashimi | |||
| Lately, developers have attempted to explore the relationship between voice
and visuals by creating various mappings between them. Hardly any developers,
however, delved into forming physical mappings between voice and real objects.
Programming non-verbal voice to control inanimate objects has yet to be
implemented in highly interactive applications. This paper introduces the
concept of Vocal Telekinesis to refer to the physical control of inanimate
objects via paralinguistic vocal input. It highlights existing applications
that could be considered forms of Vocal Telekinesis and presents some practical
implementations of this concept. The aim is to expand the scope of interactive
media through exploring various voice-physical mappings which will extend
beyond the graphical output to include physical feedback such as changes in the
size, brightness, speed, direction, and height of real objects. Keywords: Paralanguage, Vocal control, Vocal Telekinesis, Voice-physical | |||
| Supporting the creative drive: investigating paralinguistic voice as a mode of interaction for artists with upper limb disabilities | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 77-88 | |
| Dharani Perera; R. T. Jim Eales; Kathy Blashki | |||
| For people with upper limb disabilities visual art is an important activity
that allows for expression of individuality and independence. They show
remarkable endurance, patience and determination to adapt their remaining
capabilities to create visual art. There are significant advantages of digital
technologies in assisting artists with upper limb disabilities. Paralinguistic
voice recognition technologies have proven to be a particularly promising mode
of interaction. Despite these benefits, technological support for people with
upper limb disabilities to create visual art is scarce. This paper reports on a
number of case studies of several artists with upper limb disabilities. These
case studies illustrate the struggles they face to be creative and also show
the significant advantages of digital technologies in assisting such artists.
An investigation into people's ability to use the volume of their voice to
control cursor movement to create drawings on the screen is also reported. With
motivation, training and practise, use of volume to control drawing tasks shows
great promise. It is believed that paralinguistic voice has wider implications
beyond assisting artists with upper limb disabilities, such as: an alternative
mode of interaction for disabled people to perform tasks other than creating
visual art, alternative mode of interaction for hands busy environments and as
a voice training system for people with speech impairments. Keywords: Artists with upper limb disabilities, Case studies, Paralinguistic voice,
Interaction design | |||
| Use of voice input to enhance cursor control in mainstream gaming applications | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 89-96 | |
| Aidan Kehoe; Flaithri Neff; Ian Pitt | |||
| There are opportunities for use of voice input to enhance the effectiveness
of continuous cursor control in mainstream gaming. This paper describes a
program that uses voice input to manipulate the cursor gain parameter within
the context of a game. For some use groups the ability to dynamically
manipulate this parameter can be important in making games more accessible. The
program makes use of readily-available speech technology, and can be used in
conjunction with existing games. Keywords: Games, Voice input, Cursor control parameters | |||
| Getting closer: tailored human-computer speech dialog | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 97-108 | |
| Florian Metze; Roman Englert; Udo Bub; Felix Burkhardt; Joachim Stegmann | |||
| This paper presents an advanced call center, which adapts presentation and
interaction strategy to properties of the caller such as age, gender, and
emotional state. User studies on interactive voice response (IVR) systems have
shown that these properties can be used effectively to "tailor" services to
users or user groups who do not maintain personal preferences, e.g., because
they do not use the service on a regular basis. The adopted approach to achieve
individualization of services, without being able to personalize them, is based
on the analysis of a caller's voice. This paper shows how this approach
benefits service providers by being able to target entertainment and
recommendation options. It also shows how this analysis at the same time
benefits the customer, as it can increase accessibility of IVR systems to user
segments which have particular expectations or which do not cope well with a
"one size fits all" system. The paper summarizes the authors' current work on
component technologies, such as emotion detection, age and gender recognition
on telephony speech, and presents results of usability and acceptability tests
as well as an architecture to integrate these technologies in future
multi-modal contact centers. It is envisioned that these will eventually serve
customers with an avatar representation of an agent and tailored interaction
strategies, matching powerful output capabilities with advanced analysis of the
user's input. Keywords: Speech dialog, Meta information, Individualized service, Adaptation,
Usability | |||
| Attuning speech-enabled interfaces to user and context for inclusive design: technology, methodology and practice | | BIBAK | DOI | 109-122 | |
| Mark A. Neerincx; Anita H. M. Cremers; Judith M. Kessens; David A. van Leeuwen; Khiet P. Truong | |||
| This paper presents a methodology to apply speech technology for
compensating sensory, motor, cognitive and affective usage difficulties. It
distinguishes (1) an analysis of accessibility and technological issues for the
identification of context-dependent user needs and corresponding opportunities
to include speech in multimodal user interfaces, and (2) an iterative
generate-and-test process to refine the interface prototype and its design
rationale. Best practices show that such inclusion of speech technology,
although still imperfect in itself, can enhance both the functional and
affective information and communication technology-experiences of specific user
groups, such as persons with reading difficulties, hearing-impaired,
intellectually disabled, children and older adults. Keywords: Universal access, Speech technology, Multimodal interaction, User experience
engineering | |||
| Towards co-design with users who have autism spectrum disorders | | BIBAK | DOI | 123-135 | |
| Peter Francis; Sandrine Balbo; Lucy Firth | |||
| People with cognitive disorders, such as autism or Asperger's syndrome, face
many barriers when being involved in the co-design of information and
communications technologies (ICT). Cognitive disorders may require that
co-design techniques be modified to fit with individual abilities. Up until
recently, with technology design, purpose and use being in the hands of
'experts' there was little opportunity for customisation. However, ICT bring
together various threads that make open many new possibilities. Not only are
technologies cheaper, more powerful and more available than ever, but now
parents, support agencies and people with autism spectrum disorders expect
information technologies to be part of their worlds, and they have the capacity
to participate in co-design for customisation. However, co-design techniques
have not evolved to the extent that they capture this potential democratisation
of the ICT. This paper reports on an investigation of the potential to develop
a set of guidelines for co-design techniques to enable people with autism
spectrum disorders to participate in ICT design. Keywords: Information and communications technologies, Co-design, Autism spectrum
disorders, Digital assistive technologies | |||
| e-Document management in situated interactivity: the WIL approach | | BIBAK | DOI | 137-153 | |
| Paolo Bottoni; Fernando Ferri; Patrizia Grifoni; Andrea Marcante; Piero Mussio; Marco Padula; Amanda Reggiori | |||
| Complex organizations need to manage a large amount of information that
their employees produce and use in the form of documents: therefore,
information systems are adopted to access these documents in electronic format
(e-documents) through Intranet or Internet. These documents are composed,
organized and annotated in different ways according to the rules adopted by
specific professional communities. Such rules reflect the different and
peculiar culture and skills of the communities producing them. The large amount
of information available today can be potentially accessed in real time. This
has increased the need for syntactic and semantic characterization of documents
and for tools that allow their effective access and exploitation on the Net,
their easy retrieval and management, their annotation to adapt and personalize
them on the base of users' characteristics and diversities. This paper
describes the approach adopted for the Web Indexing Language (WIL) system, a
system conceived for supporting users interactivity during editing, indexing,
and annotating e-documents on the basis of conventions adopted for their
production and distribution. In particular, the approach capitalizes on the
notion that the document layout reflects the relationships among the different
semantic components of the document. The model and the architecture of the WIL
system aim at improving e-document indexing, searching, editing and annotating,
and at exploiting the description of the logical structure of the document
itself to squeeze the information about the document content which are usually
grasped by a reader at a glance. Keywords: HCI, Interactivity, XML, e-Document management | |||
| Evaluating choice in universal access: an example from rehabilitation robotics | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 155-163 | |
| A. S. White; R. Adams; S. Prior | |||
| This paper describes a technique using dimensional analysis that so far has
been rarely, if ever, used in studies of universal access. However, this
procedure can produce a robust decision support process for inclusive designs.
In this paper, it is applied to a case study of a wheelchair robot computer
interface with choices in data input methods, addressing disparate requirements
of different groups of intended users. The main underlying issue is to combine
technical measurements, speed of operation and cost with subjective opinion. It
turns out that Braglia's method has greater robustness in determining rank
compared to standard techniques. In this, case a simple switch was rated better
than a mouse or voice operation for control. Keywords: Universal access, Decision criteria, Dimensional analysis, Interface,
Rehabilitation robot | |||
| An empirical study of factors affecting the perceived usability of websites for student Internet users | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 165-184 | |
| Robert J. Nathan; Paul H. P. Yeow | |||
| This study analysed Student Internet Users' (SIUs') perception of Web
usability. Adopting a user testing method, seven Web Usability Factors (WUFs)
were tested for their significance in affecting the ease of use of website.
Several elements in websites were also tested for their significance in
affecting the WUFs. Result shows the most significant WUF is related to the
aesthetic appeal of a website, i.e., Use of Colour and Font. However, it was
found that most Web developers are not focusing on this important WUF. Elements
such as site map, site search, product image catalogue and others were also
found to positively affect SIUs' perception of the WUFs. The results presented
in this paper can be used as guidelines for designing usable websites for SIUs. Keywords: Interface design, Web usability guidelines, Ease of use, Perceived
usability, Internet users, User testing method, Empirical study | |||
| Visualization of math expressions through modality-nonspecific signals | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 185-197 | |
| Tatiana G. Evreinova | |||
| Acquiring reasonable math skills is essential for the visually disabled
pupils and students. Research in electro-tactile pattern perception has shown
that involving the resources of visual cortex into acquisition of tactile
percepts augments comprehension of the encoded information for users with a
sensory limitation. This paper describes matching software designed to
facilitate the learning process of 13 electro-tactile patterns (eTPs) denoting
eight math numbers and five arithmetic operators. Electro-tactile unit and
software were used to shape stabilized monophasic current pulses provided
through the pen coated with embedded double-strip ring type electrode. The
performance of ten subjects was investigated in terms of the number of
repetitions required to memorize and match the eTPs, and in terms of the
recognition error committed in the matching phase of the test. The analysis of
the data collected indicated that the novice-to-expert transition was
significantly above chance when the results obtained in the first and the last
test sessions were statistically compared. A permutation puzzle game which was
also designed to induce the same ten blindfolded players to mobilize the
perceptive skills and deploy individual playing tactics to manipulate the eTPs
encoding math numbers and expressions for rebuilding simple arithmetic
equations. The results of the use of the proposed gameplay technique are
discussed. Upon learning and training, the eTPs could be employed to assign
math numbers and arithmetic operators to communicate mathematics content. Keywords: Math accessibility, Visually challenged people, Modality-nonspecific signals | |||
| Towards computer-vision software tools to increase production and accessibility of video description for people with vision loss | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 199-218 | |
| Langis Gagnon; Samuel Foucher; Maguelonne Heritier; Marc Lalonde; David Byrns; Claude Chapdelaine; James Turner; Suzanne Mathieu; Denis Laurendeau; Nath Tan Nguyen; Denis Ouellet | |||
| This paper presents the status of a R&D project targeting the
development of computer-vision tools to assist humans in generating and
rendering video description for people with vision loss. Three principal issues
are discussed: (1) production practices, (2) needs of people with vision loss,
and (3) current system design, core technologies and implementation. The paper
provides the main conclusions of consultations with producers of video
description regarding their practices and with end-users regarding their needs,
as well as an analysis of described productions that lead to propose a video
description typology. The current status of a prototype software is also
presented (audio-vision manager) that uses many computer-vision technologies
(shot transition detection, key-frame identification, key-face recognition,
key-text spotting, visual motion, gait/gesture characterization, key-place
identification, key-object spotting and image categorization) to automatically
extract visual content, associate textual descriptions and add them to the
audio track with a synthetic voice. A proof of concept is also briefly
described for a first adaptive video description player which allows end users
to select various levels of video description. Keywords: e-Accessibility, Video description, Video indexing, Computer vision | |||
| Linguistic diversity and information poverty in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 219-238 | |
| Ranjit Goswami; S. K. De; B. Datta | |||
| This communication starts with a fundamental question that drives the
actions of most local and global policy-makers: out of two categories of people
(not mutually exclusive), the 'have nots' and the 'know nots', which one is
more difficult to eradicate (one may pose the question differently -- solving
which of these two problems is likely to solve the other). A lot of attention
and resources have been deployed and are committed on the challenge of
uplifting the 'have nots' to the section of bare minimum 'haves' category. A
cause and effect study between these two sections of people essentially show a
mutual dependency that eventually leads to a vicious cycle of poverty to
information poverty to back again poverty which has historically been difficult
to eradicate, and studies have often established education and access to timely
information to be a long term sustainable remedy to both these perpetual
problems. The role that the Internet can play in this background towards
empowering the billions of impoverished across two of the most underdeveloped
regions, namely South Asia (SA) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), home to world's
largest number of illiterates and poor people (70% or even more together) is
immense. With anywhere, anytime accessibility of rich Internet content, aided
by its falling prices and increased connectivity and easy to use features, to
parts of rural and even to inaccessible remote areas, online content can
effectively act as a low-cost feasible solution not only to provide basic
education, but also to deliver meaningful information and content to the
millions of primary-level educated people within the underprivileged sections
of SA & SSA, thereby enabling them to integrate and exploit various
socio-economic opportunities arising from growth in global economies. However,
rich linguistic diversity, both in SA and SSA, poses a challenge to that
opportunity. Content development to information access to literacy, all leading
to socio-economic developments, do face additional difficulties arising from
linguistic diversity for SA and SSA, regions already plagued with low level of
content generation and access in local languages. A closer examination of the
'sea' of online content reveals that SA scores poorly in local language content
development, whereas English is primarily used for Internet usage, though
nearly 90% of people of India do not use English as a 2nd or 3rd languages. For
SSA, a study reported here qualitatively examines whether linguistic diversity
indeed has any negative correlations with gross national income and Internet
penetration, and finds that they indeed are inversely related in 80% or more
cases. One case-effort is also examined to develop local language content,
critical to reap benefits from content for development for SA and SSA, in South
Asia, but it was found to be inadequate in proportion to the severity and scale
of the problem. It is alarmingly concluded that unless war-footing action is
adopted to generate relevant local language content (or effectively supported
by software like Google Translation) in the linguistically diverse backward
regions of the world, much of the benefits that could have been derived from
increased reach of freely available online content would be lost, causing an
escalation of information poverty to the 'bottom of the pyramid' section of
people in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Keywords: Online content, Utility of information, Medium of content and native
language, Information poverty, Information inequality, Linguistic diversity,
South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa | |||
| Special issue: Communication by gaze interaction | | BIB | Full-Text | 239-240 | |
| Päivi Majaranta; Richard Bates | |||
| A geometric approach to remote eye tracking | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 241-257 | |
| Arantxa Villanueva; Gintautas Daunys; Dan Witzner Hansen; Martin Böhme; Rafael Cabeza; André Meyer; Erhardt Barth | |||
| This paper presents a principled analysis of various combinations of image
features to determine their suitability for remote eye tracking. It begins by
reviewing the basic theory underlying the connection between eye image and gaze
direction. Then a set of approaches is proposed based on different combinations
of well-known features and their behaviour is evaluated, taking into account
various additional criteria such as free head movement, and minimum hardware
and calibration requirements. The paper proposes a final method based on
multiple glints and the pupil centre; the method is evaluated experimentally.
Future trends in eye tracking technology are also discussed. Keywords: Gaze estimation, Geometric modelling, Eye model, Eye tracking | |||
| Understanding users and their needs | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 259-275 | |
| Mick Donegan; Jeffrey D. Morris; Fulvio Corno; Isabella Signorile; Adriano Chió; Valentina Pasian; Alessandro Vignola; Margret Buchholz; Eva Holmqvist | |||
| Gaze-control enables people to control a computer by using eye-gaze to
select items on screen. Gaze-control is a necessity for people who have lost
all motor control of their body and only have control over eye movements. In
addition, gaze-control can be the quickest and least tiring option for a far
broader group of people with varying disabilities. This paper reports findings
from gaze-control user trials involving users from both groups: people who are
totally paralyzed, as well as people with a wide range of complex disabilities.
The trials conducted involved four different centres supporting people with
disabilities in three different European countries. Several gaze-control
systems were trialled by a large number of users with varying needs and
abilities. The perceived benefits of gaze-control are described, and
recommendations for successful assessment and implementation of gaze-control
are provided. Keywords: Gaze-control, Eye tracking, Motor disabilities, Assistive technology | |||
| Hands-free interaction with a computer and other technologies | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 277-295 | |
| Marcela Fejtová1; Luis Figueiredo; Petr Novák; Olga Stepánková; Ana Gomes | |||
| Hands-free interaction with technology is a dream for any person with
limitations in the use of his/her arms and hands. This paper describes two new
original low-cost hands-free computer peripheries -- I4Control and Magic Key,
which use movements of the user's eye or nose as an actuator of a computer
cursor. Both systems emulate the PC mouse and thereby mediate direct access to
any mouse-controlled computer application. Functionality of the presented
systems is compared to that of PC mouse using one of the usability tests
recommended by the ISO 9241 methodology. The data obtained as a result of
testing a group of ten unimpaired novice users indicated that the users'
performance improves over time of usage of the system, but the process is
rather slow. The paper describes several easy to use toy-applications intended
to improve the user's confidence in working with the considered devices. One of
these applications demonstrates that I4Control can be employed to control home
appliances or a wheelchair. Keywords: Mouse emulation and control, Eye tracking, Environment control | |||
| Learning gaze typing: what are the obstacles and what progress to expect? | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 297-310 | |
| Hirotaka Aoki; John Paulin Hansen; Kenji Itoh | |||
| Gaze interaction is a promising input modality for people who are unable to
control their fingers and arms. This paper suggests a number of new metrics
that can be applied to the analysis of gaze typing interfaces and to the
evaluation of user performance. These metrics are derived from a close
examination of eight subjects typing text by gazing on a dwell-time activated
onscreen keyboard during a seven-day experiment. One of the metrics, termed
"Attended keys per character", measures the number of keys that are attended
for each typed character. This metric turned out to be particularly well
correlated to the actual numbers of errors committed (r = 0.915). In addition
to introducing metrics specific for gaze typing, the paper discusses how the
metrics could make remote progress monitoring possible and provides some
general advice on how to introduce gaze typing for novice users. Keywords: Gaze typing, Learning process, Dwell time gaze typing system, Gaze metrics | |||
| A blueprint for integrated eye-controlled environments | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 311-321 | |
| D. Bonino; E. Castellina; F. Corno; A. Gale; A. Garbo; K. Purdy; F. Shi | |||
| Eye-based environmental control requires innovative solutions for supporting
effective user interaction, for allowing home automation and control, and for
making homes more "attentive" to user needs. Several approaches have already
been proposed, which can be seen as isolated attempts to address partial issues
and specific sub-sets of the general problem. This paper aims at tackling
gaze-based home automation as a whole, exploiting state-of-the-art technologies
and trying to integrate interaction modalities that are currently supported and
that may be supported in the near future. User-home interaction is sought
through two, complementary, interaction patterns: direct interaction and
mediated interaction. Integration between home appliances and devices and user
interfaces is granted by a central point of abstraction and harmonization
called House Manager. Innovative points can be identified in the wide
flexibility of the approach which allows on one side to integrate virtually all
home devices having a communication interface, and, on the other side, combines
direct and mediated user interaction exploiting the advantages of both. A
discussion of interaction and accessibility issues is also provided, justifying
the presented approach from the point of view of human-environment interaction. Keywords: Environmental control, Eye-based interaction, Domotic systems, Direct
interaction, Mediated interaction | |||
| Gaze controlled games | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 323-337 | |
| Poika Isokoski; Markus Joos; Oleg Spakov; Benoît Martin | |||
| The quality and availability of eye tracking equipment has been increasing
while costs have been decreasing. These trends increase the possibility of
using eye trackers for entertainment purposes. Games that can be controlled
solely through movement of the eyes would be accessible to persons with
decreased limb mobility or control. On the other hand, use of eye tracking can
change the gaming experience for all players, by offering richer input and
enabling attention-aware games. Eye tracking is not currently widely supported
in gaming, and games specifically developed for use with an eye tracker are
rare. This paper reviews past work on eye tracker gaming and charts future
development possibilities in different sub-domains within. It argues that based
on the user input requirements and gaming contexts, conventional computer games
can be classified into groups that offer fundamentally different opportunities
for eye tracker input. In addition to the inherent design issues, there are
challenges and varying levels of support for eye tracker use in the technical
implementations of the games. Keywords: Computer games, Eye tracking, Taxonomy | |||
| Attentive interfaces for users with disabilities: eye gaze for intention and uncertainty estimation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 339-354 | |
| Helmut Prendinger; Aulikki Hyrskykari; Minoru Nakayama; Howell Istance; Nikolaus Bee; Yosiyuki Takahasi | |||
| Attentive user interfaces (AUIs) capitalize on the rich information that can
be obtained from users' gaze behavior in order to infer relevant aspects of
their cognitive state. Not only is eye gaze an excellent clue to states of
interest and intention, but also to preference and confidence in comprehension.
AUIs are built with the aim of adapting the interface to the user's current
information need, and thus reduce workload of interaction. Given those
characteristics, it is believed that AUIs can have particular benefits for
users with severe disabilities, for whom operating a physical device (like a
mouse pointer) might be very strenuous or infeasible. This paper presents three
studies that attempt to gauge uncertainty and intention on the part of the user
from gaze data, and compare the success of each approach. The paper discusses
how the application of the approaches adopted in each study to user interfaces
can support users with severe disabilities. Keywords: Attentive interfaces, Disabilities, Eye gaze | |||