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Effects of feedback and dwell time on eye typing speed and accuracy

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Abstract

Eye typing provides a means of communication that is especially useful for people with disabilities. However, most related research addresses technical issues in eye typing systems, and largely ignores design issues. This paper reports experiments studying the impact of auditory and visual feedback on user performance and experience. Results show that feedback impacts typing speed, accuracy, gaze behavior, and subjective experience. Also, the feedback should be matched with the dwell time. Short dwell times require simplified feedback to support the typing rhythm, whereas long dwell times allow extra information on the eye typing process. Both short and long dwell times benefit from combined visual and auditory feedback. Six guidelines for designing feedback for gaze-based text entry are provided.

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Acknowledgments

The work presented in this paper was partly supported by the Graduate School in User-Centered Information Technology (UCIT) and by the COGAIN Network of Excellence funded by the European Commission. The authors would like to thank all volunteers who participated in the experiments, and Mika Käki, Aulikki Hyrskykari, Saila Ovaska, and Harri Siirtola from the TAUCHI unit, and Nancy and Dixon Cleveland from LC Technologies, Inc., for consultation and inspiring discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unit for Human–Computer Interaction (TAUCHI), Department of Computer Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, 33014, Finland

    Päivi Majaranta, Anne Aula & Kari-Jouko Räihä

  2. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada, M3J 1P3

    I. Scott MacKenzie

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  1. Päivi Majaranta
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  2. I. Scott MacKenzie
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  3. Anne Aula
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  4. Kari-Jouko Räihä
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Correspondence to Päivi Majaranta.

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Majaranta, P., MacKenzie, I.S., Aula, A. et al. Effects of feedback and dwell time on eye typing speed and accuracy. Univ Access Inf Soc 5, 199–208 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-006-0034-z

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