Gazemarks - Gaze-Based Visual Placeholders to Ease Attention Switching

1. Gazemarks - Gaze-Based Visual Placeholders to EaseAttentionSwitching Tuba AYDIN 30.04.2013

2. Abstract • Manytaskrequireattentionswitching. • Placeholderslike as finger, pen,.. • Theprocess of switchingattentionbetweendisplays can be simplifiedandspeedup. • Largeandmultiplevisualdisplays. • Limitations. • Visualplaceholder. • Gazemark, visualremainder.

3. Introduction • Increasinglyricharray of technologies. • Howtodealeffectivelywithmultitasking, switchingfocusandinterruptionsbecome ever moreimportant? • Howenvironmentsmight be structedtokeeptrack of multipleactivitiesoverdifferenttimescales? • Kirshintroducedconcept of entrypoints. • Designerscreateentrypointstodrawpeopleinto an interaction.

4. Introduction • Dixandco-workersdiscusstherelatedconcepts of triggersandplaceholders. • Kirksdescribesthatcomplementarystrategies can facilitatememory, attentionandperception. • Mechanismsbywhichplaceholdersmight be usedtoeaseattentionswitchingbetweenscreens. • Maincontribution is the concept of Gazemarksto provide visual placeholdersautomaticallytotheuser.

5. Related Works • Gazetracking • Gaze-basedinteractiontechniques • Multimonitorsetups / largedisplays • Multiplemonitorsfromone PC or laptop • AttentionswitchingandInterruption • Applicationswitching, multitasking

6. Pilot Study on TheUse of Placeholders • The idea based on thecompementarystrategiesused on thepaperrepresentations. • Participantswere asked to compare a paper list and a digital listpresented on a screen to find out if they used any strategiesto mark a position either onthe paper or on the digital list. • Whatkind of placeholderstrategiestheywoulduse. • A websiteandpaperwith a telephonelistconsisting 40 namesandtelephonenumbers.

7. Pilot Study on TheUse of Placeholders • Hypothesiswas that people would use fingers, pens orother objects to help keep track of where they were with thepaperlist. • Theresult of thestudyshowedthat; • Participantsusedobjectsorfingersto mark the current line on thepaper. • Participantsalso used a placeholder tokeep track of the position on the display. (cursor, highlighting, rulerorpaper). • Some of participantsdidn’tuseanystrategy to createplaceholders on the lines either on thepaper or on the screen.

8. Gazemarks • Inbothphysicalanddigitalworldcases the user had to find aplaceholderandactivelymanipulateit. • Visualplaceholders, called Gazemarks, that doesn’t need activemanipulation. • Use of an eye tracker allows a system to beimplemented to remember the last gaze position on ascreenafter visual attention has been switched away.

9. Gazemarks • Threeessential aspectsin the determination of the last gaze position: • What is the definition of a gaze fixation? • How long is the last conscious gaze fixation? • How can showing a visual placeholder be avoidedaftera blink?

10. GazeFixation • A gaze on a screen is defined as aset of glances at a region with a specific radius around thefirstglance. • The number of glances at thisregion is counted and after reaching a set threshold theseglances are said to form a gaze.

11. Lastconsciousgazefixation • Consciousand unconsciousgaze • A fixationstudyto avoid marking unconscious gaze positions. • To find out how long the last conscious gaze fixation.

12. Lastconsciousgazefixation • A searchtask on the 8” screen. • Animal pictures that were presented on the 42” screen. • The gazes wererecordedon the 8” screenwitheyetracker. • Thelastconscious gaze position has to be longer than 0.13 seconds

13. Blinking • Blinking is defined as the rapid closing and opening of theeyelid. • Ablink takes approximately 0.3 to 0.4seconds. • Blinksareignored in theGazemarksconcept. • Adelay of 0.6 seconds before the last gazeposition was marked on the screen.

14. Visualizationoptions • Many different representations could be used to mark thelast gaze position on the screen. • Threedifferentvisualizationoptions : • Flag : Marking a point with a flag or an arrow • Spotlight:Marking a region by drawing a circlearound the last gaze position.Outside the circle therepresentationis grayed-out • Focus area with gradient filter:Marking a regionby drawing a circle around the last gaze positionusing a gradientfilterto illuminate seamless transitionbetween the focusarea and the non-focus area.

15. Visualizationoptions FlagRepresentation SpotlightRepresentation FocusAreaRepresentation

16. Visualizationoptions • The three different visual options weredemostratedon an 8”screento 6 participants. • Afterwards participantsfilled out a questionnaire.

17. Visualizationoptions • Detectingthflagwasdifficult, smalland not easytodistinguishfromthemap background. • Thespotlightprovides a larger focus area and therefore it was easier tofind and they found it more accurate. • The focus area with gradient filter provides a clearfocusandguides the gaze automatically to the last gazepoint. • Theyfound the grayed out areas more distractingandif the position indicated forthe last gaze was not correct it would be much harder tofind information in these dark areas.

18. Visualizationoptions Implementation • Aprototype of the Gazemarks concept wasimplementedtoresearch reorientingfaster on a screenafterswitchingattention. • The user switches attention between a smalldisplay and a large screen. Hardware • An eyetracker • 42’’ and 8’’ display

19. Visualizationoptions Software • For the communication between the eye tracker andapplicationutilizedEIToolkit. • EIToolkitexchangemessagesover a general communicationarea, via UDP. Eye-TrackerComponent • Using theeyetracker, an EIToolkit stub thatreceivesdata from the eye tracker, transforms them tonormalizedcoordinates [0,1]wasdeveloped.

20. Visualizationoptions GazemarkApplication • Theapplication provides two mechanisms for showing the lastgazeposition : • an imageand a transparentwindow on any screen background. • The program registerswith EIToolkit that it listens to eye tracking messages. • Itreceives either valid data [0, 1],or invalid data [-1, -1]. • The last gaze position can becalculated after the program has received invalid data for 0.6 seconds.

21. Visualizationoptions • 72 invalidvalueand 16 validvaluein the fixation radius around. • Thefixationradius is set to 10% of the width of the screen resolution. • Fixationareawas highlighted by the spotlightrepresentation. • Spotlightis only shown for 3 seconds.

22. Visualizationoptions Experiment • A user study wasranusing the implemented prototype tocomparetwoconditions : • A search task on a screen without any visual placeholder. • A search task with Gazemarks. Setup • 42’’ and 8’’ screens. • Eyetrackerwhichtrackedglancestowardsthe8” screen.

23. Visualizationoptions • An attention-switching task with a visual mapsearching task implemented on the small screen. • A textual reasoning task presented on the large screen.

24. Visualizationoptions Design • The goal of the search task was to findletters on a map. • Afterfindingone of theletters, look away from the small display at the 42” display. • An arrow appeared indicating one of eightdirections. • The userhad to look back at thesmall display, find the same letter againandtelltheexperimenter which number is shown in the indicateddirection. • At the end, participants weregiven a questionnaire and asked to rate aspects of theGazemarkconcept.

25. Visualizationoptions Results Analysisof searchtimes • Search times in the two conditions were compared. • Participants were found to beconsiderablyfaster in searching for letters on the map with Gazemarks.

26. Visualizationoptions Analysis of questionnaireresults • Participantslikedthespotlightrepresentation. • The target was faster to find. • Focusleadstheattentiontotheessential. • Ithelpstoorientate. • Itreducesmentalworkload. • Only 1 participant didn’t like the spotlight • Did not notice it or just ignored it.

27. Visualizationoptions Advantages • Savesthe time andthespeed. • Not havingtorememberthe last position or letter. Disadvantages • The loss of contextual information. • Get annoying after a while.

28. Discussion • Gazemarks are designed as visual aids ondigital displays to provide these placeholders automaticallyand hence support the user’s attention switching betweendisplays. • Threeapplication domains where Gazemarks may have a role toplay : • Desktopenvironment • Smalldevices / mobile phones • UserInterfaces in cars

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