The document presents a universal text-input system called SlideType designed for touchscreen devices. It discusses: 1) Current touchscreen text entry does not accommodate people with disabilities. 2) SlideType was designed using a universal design approach to be flexible and intuitive for people with various cognitive, visual, and dexterity impairments. 3) User studies found that participants were generally able to use SlideType to enter and edit text, though some interface improvements were identified.

1. SLIDETYPE
Xiao “Nikita”Xiong
MS Human Computer Interaction
April 25, 2013
A Universal Design Text-input Systems for
Touch Screen Devices
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2. PROBLEM STATEMENT
Ubiquitous computing has surrounded us with lots of
touchscreen devices, however....
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3. PROBLEM STATEMENT
Current touch screen text-input does not accommodate
people with vision, cognition, and dexterity impairments
?
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4. PREVIOUS RESEARCH
Figure 1: Nolook
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5. PERSONA AND USE CASE
Tom
-24 years old blind male. He is not very
experienced with computer. He used a
help dog. He went to a voting machine try
to write in a candidate name but found out
that the poll worker couldn’t set up the
write machine for him
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6. DESIGN GOAL
One Text-input System for All
Universal Design Approach
Equitable Use
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7. DESIGN APPROACH
Accommodates range of preferences and abilities that
interact with text-input (Flexibility in Use)
- Cognition
- Simple and Intuitive Use
- Tolerance for Error
- Vision
- Perceptible Information
- Dexterity
- Low Physical Effort
- Size and Space for Approach and Use
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8. ITERATIVE DESIGN PROCESS
SKETCHES
V
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9. ITERATIVE DESIGN PROCESS
WIREFRAMES
V1 V2 V3
V
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10. VISUAL MOCKUPS
SpinnerType
SlideType
V
ITERATIVE DESIGN PROCESS
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11. V
ITERATIVE DESIGN PROCESS
LOW-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
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12. V
ITERATIVE DESIGN PROCESS
HI-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
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13. SOLUTION: SLIDETYPE
Multimodal Inputs and Outputs
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14. SOLUTION: SLIDETYPE
Live Demo
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15. DESIGN FEATURES:
SLIDER
- Utilize edge and corner for better navigation
- Use alphabetical order to lower cognitive load
- Provide instant audio for feed-forward
- Provide flexibility in use by sliding or tapping
- Single row to help faster visual search
(Norman&Fisher,1982)
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16. DESIGN FEATURES:
ARROWS AND ZOOMED BOX
- Use large font for better visibility
- Use bi-directional arrows for go forward/backward one letter
- Flexibility in use. It also reduce strokes when use with dual
input devices such as sip-n-puff devices
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17. USER STUDY
PARTICIPANTS
14 Adults (8 female 6 male):
• 8 vision disabilities(3 totally blind, 5 low vision)
• 3 mild cognitive disabilities.
• 3 dexterity disabilities
• 24-64 years old
• 4 Master’s degree or higher
• 3 Bachelor’s degree or higher,
• 4 had Some college or Associate’s degree
• 1 G.E.D.
• 2 High school
• Self report touchscreen experience range 1-10 with a mean of 5.3
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18. USER STUDY
METHODS
Pre-test interview:
• Background
• Computer and touchscreen experiences
Test (think out loud):
• 1. Type in “John Smith”
• 2. Delete and input a new name
Post-test interview
• Rate preferences and provide qualitative feedback
Duration: 20-30min
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19. USER STUDY
TWO PROTOTYPES
SlideType V1:
6 participants
User needs to hit enter to input;
Space is inside the alphabet
SlideType V2:
8 participants
User tap or slide on the slide bar
to input;
Space is at the bottom right
corner.
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20. USER STUDY 1
RESULTS
Audio feedback and large letter size
Bi-directional arrows: precise control, predictable
manner (a low vision user)
Double action process is repetitive (2 participants
with dexterity impairments)
1/6 fail to input text initially thinking they could directly tap
2/6 fail to input space cause they can’t see the space button
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21. USER STUDY 2
RESULTS
- 8/8 participants completed the task of typing and editing
- Participants rate average 3.875 / 5 (4 easy, 5 very easy)
- 3 participants with mild cognitive impairment finish the
task with no instruction
One totally blind user who is very experienced with
touchscreen had lots of error inputs since he wants to
touch anywhere on the screen to input text
“This is easier than using keyboard”- 37 years old male participant who is totally
blind
“ I like everything about it. The letter size is very nice. That's easy to see”- 24
years old male participant who have complete spin injury
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22. USER STUDY
FINDINGS
- Participants find the introduction too long
- Participants would like to have audio feedback for the
current letter they are deleting
- From observation, participants actually have a higher error
rate using SlideType V2
- More choices of color & contrast needs to be provided
since people with low vision percept information differently
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23. FUTURE WORK
Based on participants’ feedback
• Modifications of instructions
• Modifications of audio feedback for correcting typo
• Modifications of slide gesture detection
• Modifications of color&contrast options
Recruit and test more participants
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24. REFERENCES
1.
Kane, S.K., J.O. Wobbrock, and R.E. Ladner, Usable gestures for blind people: understanding preference
and performance, in Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems2011, ACM: Vancouver, BC, Canada. p. 413-422.
2.
Nicolau, H., et al., Proficient blind users and mobile text-entry, in Proceedings of the 28th Annual
European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics2010, ACM: Delft, Netherlands. p. 19-22.
3.
Granata, C., et al. Voice and graphical -based interfaces for interaction with a robot dedicated to elderly
and people with cognitive disorders. in RO-MAN, 2010 IEEE. 2010.
4.
Guerreiro, T., et al., Mobile text-entry models for people with disabilities, in Proceedings of the 15th
European conference on Cognitive ergonomics: the ergonomics of cool interaction2008, ACM: Funchal,
Portugal. p. 1-4.
5.
Lee, S., et al., EZ ballot with multimodal inputs and outputs, in Proceedings of the 14th international ACM
SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility2012, ACM: Boulder, Colorado, USA. p. 215-216.
6.
Connell, B.R., Jones, M., Mace, R., Mueller, J., Mullick, A., Ostroff, E., Sanford, J., Steinfeld, E., Story,
M. and Vanderheiden, G, The Principles of Universal Design, 1997.
7.
Zhai, S. and B.A. Smith, Alphabetically biased virtual keyboards are easier to use: layout does matter, in
CHI '01 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems2001, ACM: Seattle, Washington. p.
321-322.
8.
Donald A. Norman, D.F., Why Alphabetic Keyboards Are Not Easy to Use: Keyboard Layout Doesn't
Much Matter. Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 1982.
9.
Jo, et al., Blind people and mobile touch-based text-entry: acknowledging the need for different flavors, in
The proceedings of the 13th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and
accessibility2011, ACM: Dundee, Scotland, UK. p. 179-186.
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25. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Many thanks to Professor Jon A. Sanford from Center for Assistive
Technology and Environmental Access for advising me along the
development of the project. Many thanks to the EZ Ballot team Tina
Lee, Elaine Liu and Samrat Ambadekar.
Many thanks to Research Scientist Mr. Matthew E. Swarts for
answering technical questions.
Many thanks to the participants in the study.
This project was supported by the Election Assistance Commission
through a Grant to the Information Technology and Information
Foundation.
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26. THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION!
Q&A?
For more questions and play with demo, please contact me at:
xxiong6@gatech.edu
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