Ann Paradiso

Toward Everyday Gaze Input: Accuracy and Precision of Eye Tracking and Implications for Design

For eye tracking to become a ubiquitous part of our everyday interaction with computers, we first need to understand its limitations outside rigorously controlled labs, and develop robust applications that can be used by a broad range of users and in various environments. Toward this end, we collected eye tracking data from 80 people in a calibration-style task, using two different trackers in two lighting conditions. We found that accuracy and precision can vary between users and targets more than six-fold, and report on differences between lighting, trackers, and screen regions. We show how such data can be used to determine appropriate target sizes and to optimize the parameters of commonly used filters. We conclude with design recommendations and examples how our findings and methodology can inform the design of error-aware adaptive applications.

AACrobat: Using Mobile Devices to Lower Communication Barriers and Provide Autonomy with Gaze-Based AAC

Gaze-based alternative and augmentative communication (AAC) devices provide users with neuromuscular diseases the ability to communicate with other people through only the movement of their eyes. These devices suffer from slow input, causing a host of communication breakdowns to occur during face-to-face conversations. These breakdowns lead to decreased user autonomy, conversation quality, and communication partner engagement. Attempts to improve communication through these devices has mainly focused on throughput and rate enhancement, though this has only attained meager results to date. In this work, we address this issue from the top down by considering AAC devices as a form of groupware and designing interactions around this groupware that facilitate better conversations for all involved communicators. We first present qualitative findings on issues with gaze-based AAC and end-user communication preferences; we identify several design guidelines for improving these systems and then present AACrobat, a system that embodies these guidelines and introduces novel interactions by extending gaze-based AAC devices with a mobile companion app. Finally, we present early feedback on AACrobat through three case studies of users with ALS.

At times avuncular and cantankerous, with the reflexes of a mongoose: Understanding Self-Expression through Augmentative and Alternative Communication Devices

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a disease that causes individuals to lose their ability to control their muscles, eventually leaving them unable to speak or write. People with ALS often transition to using an augmentative and alternative communication device (AAC), which requires both the AAC user and their conversation partners to adjust to new and different communication patterns. We conducted interviews with seven individuals with ALS and their partners, focusing on how AAC use has impacted their communication and personal expression. Our participants experienced a range of communication difficulties, including conversational pacing, personality expression, and interacting with unfamiliar conversational partners. Participants worked to adapt their communication behaviors to the AAC device, but still experienced challenges in expressing themselves, and sometimes felt compelled to withdraw from social interaction. By improving our understanding of how people transition to using AAC, we may inform improved designs for future AAC devices.

Remnance of Form: Altered Reflection of Physical Reality

Remnance of Form is an interactive installation that explores the dynamic tension between an object and its shadow. By fusing light, projection, and motion technologies, the shadow can now detach itself from its former role. This creates a new narrative that challenges our perception of reality, whats real and whats not.

News Sync: Enabling scenario-based news exploration

News consumption patterns are changing, but the tools to view news are dominated by portal and search approaches. In this paper, we suggest using elements of search, visualization, natural language processing, and machine learning to provide a more captivating, sticky news consumption experience. We propose a novel use-case driven approach to present news and present News Sync, a system that addresses three specific news exploration scenarios where a user wants to catch up on news from a particular time period, keep in touch with news from specific locations, or follow the lives of celebrities. The news experience is enhanced by clustering news articles and allowing users to interact with and share stories of interest, and filter results on specific dimensions such as time, location, and key entities. User deployment studies suggest a distinct preference for an interface that supports exploration and visualization of news articles.

Pocket Skills: A Conversational Mobile Web App To Support Dialectical Behavioral Therapy

Mental health disorders are a leading cause of disability worldwide. Although evidence-based psychotherapy is effective, engagement from such programs can be low. Mobile apps have the potential to help engage and support people in their therapy. We developed Pocket Skills, a mobile web app based on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). Pocket Skills teaches DBT via a conversational agent modeled on Marsha Linehan, who developed DBT. We examined the feasibility of Pocket Skills in a 4-week field study with 73 individuals enrolled in psychotherapy. After the study, participants reported decreased depression and anxiety and increased DBT skills use. We present a model based on qualitative findings of how Pocket Skills supported DBT. Pocket Skills helped participants engage in their DBT and practice and implement skills in their environmental context, which enabled them to see the results of using their DBT skills and increase their self-efficacy. We discuss the design implications of these findings for future mobile mental health systems.

Voicesetting: Voice Authoring UIs for Improved Expressivity in Augmentative Communication

Alternative and augmentative communication (AAC) systems used by people with speech disabilities rely on text-to-speech (TTS) engines for synthesizing speech. Advances in TTS systems allowing for the rendering of speech with a range of emotions have yet to be incorporated into AAC systems, leaving AAC users with speech that is mostly devoid of emotion and expressivity. In this work, we describe voicesetting as the process of authoring the speech properties of text. We present the design and evaluation of two voicesetting user interfaces: the Expressive Keyboard, designed for rapid addition of expressivity to speech, and the Voicesetting Editor, designed for more careful crafting of the way text should be spoken. We evaluated the perceived output quality, requisite effort, and usability of both interfaces; the concept of voicesetting and our interfaces were highly valued by end-users as an enhancement to communication quality. We close by discussing design insights from our evaluations.

Remnance of form

Through several vignettes - Disappearing, Showing Fear, Many Faces, and Dream of Flying, a transforming shadow deconstructs the notion of materialistic view of the physical world as well as offers to become a surrogate for channelling the images and imaginations about ones own self.

Remnance of Form: Interactive Narratives with Augmented Shadows

This video illustrates Remnance of Form, an interactive art installation comprising a series of vignettes designed to challenge our notion of reality through the manipulation of light and shadow. By fusing light, projection, and motion technologies, the shadow can now detach itself from its former role. This creates a new narrative that blurs the border between whats real and whats not.