Assistive user interface for people with motion impairment

Abstract

Nowadays, using computer is an indispensable part in daily life. However, traditional input devices such as keyboard and mouse are inappropriate for motion-impaired people. It is because most of them cannot control their fingertips as flexible as people without physical disabilities do. Thus, to aim directly at the aforementioned problems, an assistive user interface for people with motion disabilities is proposed. In this project, the target user group is defined as people with mobility impairments. Most likely they have limited strength in their fingers. Physical pressing activity is impossible for them to use the computer effectively. To have a better understanding of motion-impaired users, a secondary school student with cerebral palsy was invited to use and evaluate this system. Nowadays, various kinds of assistive products are available such as speech recognition and keyboard guard, etc. However, most users cannot perform pressing actions, or make their speech precise. Some may even deteriorate their health situation if they have disease like arthritis. To overcome these problems, an idea of providing an interface with hover typing is brainstormed. It does not require people to use their fingertips anymore. Users just move the joystick to control both keyboard and mouse. Together with the novel key arrangement based on the relative frequency of English letters, it can help relieve the stress on their fingers during typing, and minimize their movements. After the motion-impaired student’s evaluation and comments, the system is found helpful in assisting motion-impaired people to use the computer.