Gazing with pEYE: new concepts in eye typing

Abstract

Eye typing applications like a virtual keyboard are often straining to use. We developed various interfaces based on different theoretical ideas. In Iwrite, letters are selected by gazing towards the outer frame of the monitor. This should minimize the error rate, but to the disadvantage of speed. In a dynamic concept, StarWrite, moving letters are to be dragged directly onto the text window. The third implementation pEYEwrite is based on marking or pie menus which have already been shown to be powerful tools in mouse control. Preliminary testings demonstrated a superiority of pEYEwrite over the other concepts. Not only did pEYEwrite produce the fastest text entry, but also the largest increases in performance over several sessions. Data indicate that pie menus must be regarded as a helpful and powerful tool in various gaze control applications.