Orbits

Abstract

We introduce Orbits, a novel gaze interaction technique that enables hands-free input on smart watches. The technique relies on moving controls to leverage the smooth pursuit movements of the eyes and detect whether and at which control the user is looking at. In Orbits, controls include targets that move in a circular trajectory in the face of the watch, and can be selected by following the desired one for a small amount of time. We conducted two user studies to assess the technique's recognition and robustness, which demonstrated how Orbits is robust against false positives triggered by natural eye movements and how it presents a hands-free, high accuracy way of interacting with smart watches using off-the-shelf devices. Finally, we developed three example interfaces built with Orbits: a music player, a notifications face plate and a missed call menu. Despite relying on moving controls-very unusual in current HCI interfaces-these were generally well received by participants in a third and final study.

Evaluation of Appearance-Based Methods and Implications for Gaze-Based Applications

“…The typical usage of eye gaze information is as a replacement of the mouse, such as typing words with the eye [40], indicating user attention [44], and selecting items [76]. Researchers have investigated daily human-computer interactions using different eye movements, such as fixations [16,35,40], smooth pursuit [13], and eye gestures [37].…”

“…Appearance-based gaze estimation could thus be used in applications requiring explicit eye input, such as object selection [2,10] or gaze pointing [45,69]. Appearance-based methods are already suitable for applications only requiring measurement of relative changes in gaze direction over time, such as gaze-based user modelling, passive eye monitoring or detection of gaze patterns, such as smooth pursuit eye movements [13]. Also the latest attentive user interfaces could use appearance-based gaze estimation methods, such as for eye contact detection [42,54,70] or attention forecasting [56].…”

DialPlates

“…Further application areas of Pursuits include interaction with smart watches [11], interaction in smart homes [31], and using Pursuits for authentication [7,27,28]. Kangas et al [15] and Špakov et al [34] used Pursuits in desktop settings as a continuous signal to control an on-screen widget to, for example, adjust volume.…”

“…approach is its independence from offset and scaling and, therefore, the eye tracker does not need calibration but can be instantly used. Another advantage is that due to being scale-independent, small interfaces, e.g., for a smartwatch [11], can be built.…”

“…A typical smooth pursuits-based interface offers several targets to give users a choice. Esteves et al [11] showed that it is possible to distinguish eight targets moving on a circle. Enhancements by using PCA (principal component analysis) enable up to nine targets to be distinguished [2].…”