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BlinkWrite: efficient text entry using eye blinks

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Abstract

In this paper, a new text entry system is proposed, implemented, and evaluated. BlinkWrite provides a communication gateway for cognitively able motor-impaired individuals who cannot use a traditional eye-tracking system. In contrast to most hands-free systems, BlinkWrite allows text to be entered and corrected using a single input modality: blinks. The system was implemented using a scanning ambiguous keyboard, a new form of scanning keyboard that allows English text to be entered in less than two scanning intervals per character. In a user study, 12 participants entered text using the system with three settings for scanning interval: 1,000, 850, and 700 ms. An average text entry rate of 4.8 wpm was observed with accuracy >97%. The highest average text entry rate was achieved with the scanning interval of 850 ms.

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Notes

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_bell_and_the_butterfly.

  2. The design in Fig. 7 was reported with SPC = 1.834 in the original publication [18]; however, only "double selection" was used in the calculation. SAK designs supporting "multiple selections" yield a slightly lower SPC.

  3. It has been a convention dating back to the 1920s to define "word" in "words per minute" as five characters, including letters, punctuation, etc. [32].

  4. http://www.eyetechds.com/.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the reviewers for thoughtful and helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. We thank EyeTech Digital Systems for the loan of a TM3 eye-tracking system. This research is sponsored by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

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  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3, Canada

    I. Scott MacKenzie & Behrooz Ashtiani

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  1. I. Scott MacKenzie
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Correspondence to I. Scott MacKenzie.

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Scott MacKenzie, I., Ashtiani, B. BlinkWrite: efficient text entry using eye blinks. Univ Access Inf Soc 10, 69–80 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-010-0188-6

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