Investigation of continual operation procedures via a user centered gaze control by means of flexible gaze gestures

Abstract

This work presents the pursued research results of a study about the continual control of virtual control elements by gaze, which was released in the proceedings of the spring congress 2017 arranged by the Society of Ergonomics and Work Science (German: GfA). The motivation to provide a more intuitive and robust gaze interaction method leads to the usage of specific gaze gestures. These gestures are based on unique gaze patterns which are distinct from typical intended as well as unintended viewing. For enabling extensive interactions through those gestures a gesture set was developed and tested in a first attempt in terms of its self-descriptiveness and learnability. The second objective of this study arises from the necessity to provide the user with vital information contents about his operation possibilities during the interaction by gaze gestures. By means of the design parameterization two different interfaces were tested concerning its design parameter shape. The objective was to come to first conclusions about the guiding method of representing specific visual interface elements to establish a satisfying gaze control. The results show that the applied gesture set can be learned quite easily and helps the user to connect the symbolic of the gesture with the corresponding execution. Furthermore, the experimental results give evidence of the preference of reference points (grid points) as the guiding elements rather than a polyline (square) shape in the gaze-gesture-controlled interface Practical Relevance: The research of gaze control is on the cutting edge. The control by gestures, for example through touch operation, has asserted themselves in various fields of application. These methods were employed to promote trends like autonomous driving, service design and individualization. Powerful and at the same time cost efficient eye tracking systems favor the extensive application of this technology beyond the recent research fields of medical diagnostic and individual interaction solutions for handicapped people. Furthermore, gaze control has great potential to help the user in fields like teleoperation, complex interfaces and cockpits as well as in the public service sector. Consequently it constitutes an innovative, intuitive and inspiring way of human system interaction which could also be useful combined with other interaction modalities. Besides all these arising opportunities in the mentioned fields, there is a big necessity to conscientiously concern the advantages and disadvantages of this technology. According to the research which has been accomplished in other, more established fields of interaction a well-defined design guideline, both for the gaze-controlled interface and the applied control characteristic is inevitable. The presented work depicts another step towards this approach.