Inclusive Voice Interaction Techniques for Creative Object Positioning

Abstract

People with physical impairments can experience challenges when using traditional input devices such as a mouse and keyboard for creative visual design work. Speech interaction is an alternative input method that can facilitate a more inclusive approach for supporting creative work. However, there has been a lack of work to date investigating how to position and move creative assets (e.g. images) around a digital workspace via speech interaction techniques. We present three multimodal speech interaction approaches to support the positioning of graphical objects around a design canvas via speech commands: Speed-based Control, Location Guides, and Positional Guides. A user evaluation with non-disabled participants (N=30) found that the Location Guides approach was significantly more efficient, accurate, and usable for the positioning of images when compared with the other methods. A follow-up study with physically impaired users (N=6) demonstrated they were able to effectively position images around a design canvas using the Location Guides technique with participants also rating this approach as exhibiting a high level of usability. CCS CONCEPTS• Human-centered computing → Accessibility; Accessibility design and evaluation methods.

Voice Snapping: Inclusive Speech Interaction Techniques for Creative Object Manipulation

“…An essential and core element of visual design work is graphical object manipulation where digital assets can efciently be positioned, scaled, resized, and adapted in terms of orientation [39]. Object positioning has been explored in the literature using speech inputfor instance, Aziz et al [30] investigated diferent speech supported interaction techniques for object positioning to assist people with physical impairments in creative design work (e.g. via the use of positional labels and alignment guides).…”

“…Speech interaction holds potential to make these platforms more accessible [3,4,11], although there has been a lack of work to date investigating the feasibility of this approach. Initial research has explored the production of freeform creative drawings [5,6,21] and positioning of objects around a design canvas [30] (via voice control), although there remains little understanding around how fundamental graphical asset manipulations can be facilitated via speech. For instance, controlling an object's shape and dimensions is a core activity within creative applications where users can typically scale and resize objects (e.g.…”