Navigating a 3D Avatar using a Single Switch

Many users with severe motor impairments, such as quadriplegics, interact with computers using an indirect selection technique called switch access scanning. Switch scanning allows for iteratively selecting an input from a set of input options using a single switch input and which replaces the use of a keyboard or a mouse, which they may be unable to use. Navigating an avatar in a 3D virtual world using existing switch access scanning systems is slow and erroneous because these interfaces are non-linear and requires players to provide continuous (holding a key) and mixed inputs (holding two or more keys). Through the analysis of navigation behavior of eight able-bodied users, a new scanning system called hold-and-release was developed. Using simulation hold-and-release scanning was found to be significantly more efficient than existing scanning systems. Multistep selection was found to be most efficient for mixing inputs, but expanding the selection set has no approximation errors.

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References

Eelke Folmer, Fangzhou Liu, Barrie Ellis. Navigating a 3D Avatar using a Single Switch, In Proceedings of Foundations of Digital Interactive Games,Pages 154-160, Bordeaux France, June 2011.