The Usability of Speech and Eye Gaze as a Multimodal Interface for a Word Processor
Tanya Beelders, Pieter J. Blignaut · InTech eBooks · 2011
Communication between humans and computers is considered to be two-way communication between two powerful processors over a narrow bandwidth (Jacobs and Karn, 2003). Most interfaces today utilise more bandwidth with computer-to-user communication than vice versa, leading to a decidedly one-sided use of the available bandwidth (Jacobs and Karn, 2003). An additional communication mode will invariably provide for an improved interface (Jacobs, 1993) and new input devices which use passive measurements to capture data from the user both conveniently and at a high speed are well suited to provide more balance in the bandwidth disparity (Jacobs and Karn, 2003). In order to better utilise the bandwidth between human and computer, more natural communication which concentrates more on parallel and not sequential communication is required (Jacobs, 1993). Furthermore, the user interface is the connection between the user and the computer and as such plays a vital role in the success or failure of an application. Modern-day interfaces are entirely graphical and require users to visually acquire and manually manipulate objects on screen (Hatfield and Jenkins, 1997) and the current trend of Windows, Icons, Menu and Pointer (WIMP) interfaces has already been around since the 1970s (van Dam, 2001). Unlike their command line counterparts, these graphical user interfaces are not in the least accessible to users with disabilities and it has become essential that viable alternatives to mouse and keyboard input are found (Hatfield and Jenkins, 1997). Specially designed applications which take users with disabilities into consideration are available but these do not necessarily compare with the more popular applications. This chapter therefore aims to investigate various ways to provide alternative means of input which could facilitate use of the mainstream product by disabled users. These alternative means should also enhance the user experience for novice, intermediate and expert users. Findings from previous studies (Beelders, 2006; Blignaut, Dednam and Beelders, 2007) show that while novice users of word processors experience a number of obstacles in acceptance and usage of the application that are unique to the demographic, alternative pictorial icons, text buttons and translation of the interface into the native language of the user all failed to lessen the learning curve significantly or to increase usability significantly. However, these findings should not discourage researchers but should serve as encouragement to find more innovative and creative means of alleviating the burden on these users. Particularly since these users show remarkable eagerness and enthusiasm to learn, greater effort should be made to accommodate them to become