Darius Miniotas

Gaze-based selection of standard-size menu items

With recent advances in eye tracking technology, eye gaze gradually gains acceptance as a pointing modality. Its relatively low accuracy, however, determines the need to use enlarged controls in eye-based interfaces rendering their design rather peculiar. Another factor impairing pointing performance is deficient robustness of an eye trackers calibration. To facilitate pointing at standard-size menus, we developed a technique that uses dynamic target expansion for on-line correction of the eye trackers calibration. Correction is based on the relative change in the gaze point location upon the expansion. A user study suggests that the technique affords a dramatic six-fold improvement in selection accuracy. This is traded off against a much smaller reduction in performance speed (39%). The technique is thus believed to contribute to development of universal-access solutions supporting navigation through standard menus by eye gaze alone.