Despite the opportunity afforded by the relatively low-cost eye tracking technology now becoming available, practical eye-control of computers is still very limited. This is particularly unfortunate for children with severe motor impairments who retain control of their eye movements and have the potential to use an eye tracker, but who miss out on important childhood developmental activities because of a lack of suitable interactive software to support these activities. In a previous research project in which he developed EyeDraw, software that enables children with severe motor impairments to draw pictures with their eye movements, the PI showed that for this community eye tracking can provide a powerful and noninvasive means of creative expression. Though EyeDraw was in many ways a success, during its development the PI identified three major problems that hinder efforts by researchers and practitioners to create eye-controlled software for these children. Firstly, no rapid prototyping tools or software application frameworks are available specifically for developing eye-controlled applications. Furthermore, eye-controlled software is typically intended for expert use and does not provide enjoyable experiences at first glance. Last but not least, there is no established practice for working with children with severe disabilities as partners in software design. This project responds to these problems by pursuing a number of related activities, within the concrete context of computer applications that support playing music. The PI will determine which participatory design techniques can work with children with severe motor impairments, and will establish a design practice that allows him to collaborate directly with them and their caregivers, to develop software that enables the children to make music with eye movements. He will create a framework that supports rapid prototyping of eye-controlled applications for this user community by giving caregivers, practitioners, and researchers a means to quickly generate eye-interactive sketches so that the children can communicate, explore alternatives, provide feedback, and express themselves creatively. And he will design intervention techniques that address the difficulties associated with the initial use of eye-controlled software, to ensure an immediate sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, interaction, control, encouragement, and expression. This last goal will be accomplished through interfaces that support musical expression even with a low-fidelity zero-point calibration, and which incrementally improve the calibration during expressive musical activities while also gradually introducing advanced functionality and opportunities for creative musical expression.
Broader Impacts: This project will advance an understanding of how to build eye-controlled software for children with severe disabilities, a challenge that is not addressed by the current scientific or design literature. Project outcomes will provide young people with severe motor impairments with a means of engaging in artistic pursuits that are currently out of reach. The rapid prototyping framework for eye-controlled applications will provide an infrastructure for university classroom instruction and future researchers.
