Custom Interfaces Make Computer Clicking Faster

Tag : Complete Computer System

Off-the-shelf designs are especially frustrating for the disabled,the elderly and anybody who has trouble controlling a mouse. A newapproach to design, developed at the University of Washington,would put each person through a brief skills test and then generatea mathematically-based version of the user interface optimized forhis or her vision and motor abilities. A paper describing thesystem, which for the first time offers an instantly customizableapproach to user interfaces, was presented today in Chicago at ameeting of the Association for the Advancement of ArtificialIntelligence.

"Assistive technologies are built on the assumption that it'sthe people who have to adapt to the technology. We tried to reversethis assumption, and make the software adapt to people," saidlead author Krzysztof Gajos, a UW doctoral student in computerscience and engineering. Co-authors are Dan Weld, a UW professor ofcomputer science and engineering, and Jacob Wobbrock, an assistantprofessor in the UW's Information School.

Tests showed the system closed the performance gap between disabledand able-bodied users by 62 percent, and disabled users stronglypreferred the automatically generated interfaces.

"This shows that automatically generating personalizedinterfaces really does work, and the technology is ready for primetime," Weld said.

The system, called Supple, begins with a one-time assessment of aperson's mouse pointing, dragging and clicking skills. A ring ofdots appears on the screen and as each dot lights up, the user mustquickly click on it. The task is repeated with different-sizeddots. Other prompts ask the participant to click and drag, selectfrom a list, and click repeatedly on one spot. Participants canmove the cursor using any type of device. The test takes about 20minutes for an able-bodied person or up to 90 minutes for a personwith motor disabilities.

An optimization program then calculates how long it would take theperson to complete various computer tasks, and in a couple ofseconds it creates the interface that maximizes that person'saccuracy and speed when using a particular program.

Researchers tested the system last summer on six able-bodied peopleand 11 people with motor impairments. The resulting interfacesshowed one size definitely did not fit all.

A man with severe cerebral palsy used his chin to control atrackball and could move the pointer quickly but spastically. Basedon his skills test, Supple generated a user interface where all thetargets were bigger than normal, and lists were expanded tominimize scrolling.

By contrast, a woman with muscular dystrophy who participated inthe study used both hands to move a mouse. She could make veryprecise movements but moved the cursor very slowly and with greateffort because of weak muscles. Based on her results, Suppleautomatically generated an interface with small buttons and acompressed layout.

"There is a temptation to think that we can come up with auniversal design. But if we look at the results, the design thathelps one person will actually be hurtful to a person with adifferent set of abilities," Gajos said.

"From an accessibility standpoint, it's always better tochange the environment, rather than use specialized assistivetechnologies," said Kurt Johnson, a UW professor ofrehabilitation medicine who coordinated the tests.

Supple could be useful for many people with limitations infunction, ranging from the elderly, to people with low vision, topeople with hand tremors.

The program could also be used to create interfaces that can adaptto different sizes of screen, for example on handheld devices.

But deploying this system would require a radically differentapproach to designing computer interfaces, Gajos said. He predictsthe first applications are likely to be for Web-based applications.The researchers also plan to look at adapting interfaces that weredesigned in the traditional way into ones that Supple can use.