The validity of using non-representative users in gaze communication research

Authors:
Howell Istance;Stephen Vickers;Aulikki Hyrskykari
Affiliations:
De Montfort University;De Montfort University;University of Tampere
Venue:
Proceedings of the Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications
Year:
2012

Citing 5
Cited 1

EyeDraw: enabling children with severe motor impairments to draw with their eyes

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
For Your Eyes Only: Controlling 3D Online Games by Eye-Gaze

INTERACT '09 Proceedings of the 12th IFIP TC 13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Part I
Understanding users and their needs

Universal Access in the Information Society - Special Issue: Communication by Gaze Interaction
Designing gaze gestures for gaming: an investigation of performance

Proceedings of the 2010 Symposium on Eye-Tracking Research & Applications
Representing users in accessibility research

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Performing Locomotion Tasks in Immersive Computer Games with an Adapted Eye-Tracking Interface

ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Gaze-based interaction techniques have been investigated for the last two decades, and in many cases the evaluation of these has been based on trials with able-bodied users and conventional usability criteria, mainly speed and accuracy. The target user group of many of the gaze-based techniques investigated is, however, people with different types of physical disabilities. We present the outcomes of two studies that compare the performance of two groups of participants with a type of physical disability (one being cerebral palsy and the other muscular dystrophy) with that of a control group of able-bodied participants doing a task using a particular gaze interaction technique. One study used a task based on dwell-time selection, and the other used a task based on gaze gestures. In both studies, the groups of participants with physical disabilities performed significantly worse than the able-bodied control participants. We question the ecological validity of research into gaze interaction intended for people with physical disabilities that only uses able-bodied participants in evaluation studies without any testing using members of the target user population.