Design and Evaluation of a Computer Pointing System for People with Disabilities

• Main Authors: Ching-TienShih, 施清添
• Other Authors: Ching-Hsing Luo
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/72803508421163843027

博士 === 國立成功大學 === 電機工程學系 === 102 === This study proposed a novel design of a computer pointing system to improve the effectiveness of computer pointing for people with disabilities, and the relevant studies have been published in international journals. Two major designs of this study included Two-grade movement method and Screen-partitioning method, which are used for disabled people to rapidly and accurately move the cursor to the assigned positions by using a keyboard, for the purpose of improving the effectiveness of pointing performance. In addition, the design of Integrated Pointing Device Driver (IPDD) combined with Automatic Pointing Assistive Program (APAP) and Dynamic Pointing Assistive Program (DPAP) enables disabled people to use standard input devices (i.e. commercial numeric keyboards and mice) to operate the computer, in terms of providing them with inexpensive and easily maintainable computer input devices. The design principle of Two-grade movement method is to divide the cursor movement into two modes- jumping and contining movement mode. Users can select each mode to move the cursor according to the distance of the target. At the beginning, users can use jumping movement mode to move the cursor near to the target, then use continuing movement mode to move the cursor to the assigned target precisely. Experimental results show that with Two-grade movement method, the cursor movement of farther target is 6.17-8.10 times faster than Mousekey provided by Microsoft; while the cursor movement of closer target is 10.31-12.58 times faster than Mousekey. The design principle of Screen-Partitioning method is to divide screen into several cell blocks and code each block with auxiliary windows program. With this method, users can rapidly and accurately move the cursor to the target position by entering the block code with commercial numeric keyboard when see the assigned target located in which block. The experiment defines %AP as a percentage of able performance, in terms of the number of completed performance for disabled people in a certain period divided by the number of completed performance for normal people. According to the result, the use of Screen-Partitioning Method is 67%AP, while the use of Mousekey is 14%AP, and 43%AP of using Two-grade movement method. It shows that using Screen-Partitioning Method can significantly improve the effectiveness of moving cursor. The design of IPDD is to rewrite the mouse driver by software technology in order to redefine the mouse functions for disabled people to operate a standard mouse with their residual limb ability. IPDD combined with Automatic pointing assistive program (APAP) and Dynamic Pointing Assistive Program (DPAP), enables users to improve the effectiveness of moving cursor by using standard input devices instead of using specially designed assistive devices. The experiment is designed for users to use APAP and DPAP to take part in this experiment and compares the difference by using ANOVA. The results show that the pointing effectiveness increased to 64.5% by using APAP, while the pointing effectiveness increased to 39.3% by using DPAP. This study presents a design of computer pointing system, and the design—Screen-Partitioning Method is able to effectively improve the pointing performance for disabled people. In this experiment, the computer screen is partitioned three times, and each partition is based on 4*4 dividing by Screen-Partitioning Method. The further study is to extend the application with different users and increase the numbers of cell blocks. IPDD combined with DPAP and APAP allows some disabled people operating the computer by using standard commercial input devices with the advantages of inexpensiveness, maintainability, and easy accessibility. The future plan is to expand the application to more subjects, including elders and children.