Off-the-shelf designs are especially frustrating for the disabled, the elderly and anybody who has trouble controlling a mouse. A new approach to design, developed at the University of Washington, would put each person through a brief skills test and then generate a mathematically-based version of the user interface optimized for his or her vision and motor abilities. A paper describing the system, which for the first time offers an instantly customizable approach to user interfaces, was presented July 15 in Chicago at a meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. Tests showed the system closed the performance gap between disabled and able-bodied users by 62%, and disabled users strongly preferred the automatically generated interfaces. The system, called Supple, begins with a one-time assessment of a person's mouse pointing, dragging and clicking skills. A ring of dots appears on the screen and as each dot lights up, the user must quickly click on it. The task is repeated with different-sized dots. Other prompts ask the participant to click and drag, select from a list, and click repeatedly on one spot. Participants can move the cursor using any type of device.
The test takes about 20 minutes for an able-bodied person or up to 90 minutes for a person with motor disabilities. An optimization program then calculates how long it would take the person to complete various computer tasks, and in a couple of seconds it creates the interface that maximizes that person's accuracy and speed when using a particular program. Researchers tested the system last summer on six able-bodied people and 11 people with motor impairments. The resulting interfaces showed one size definitely did not fit all. A man with severe cerebral palsy used his chin to control a trackball and could move the pointer quickly but spastically. Based on his skills test, Supple generated a user interface where all the targets were bigger than normal, and lists were expanded to minimize scrolling. By contrast, a woman with muscular dystrophy who participated in the study used both hands to move a mouse. She could make very precise movements but moved the cursor very slowly and with great effort because of weak muscles. Based on her results, Supple automatically generated an interface with small buttons and a compressed layout. The program could also be used to create interfaces that can adapt to different sizes of screen, for example on handheld devices.
More information:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080715152316.htm
More information:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080715152316.htm