Hands-Free Writing Software May Aid Disabled Users

By Melissa Schorr Wed Aug 21, 5:48 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Two British computer programmers have developed a freely available software program that allows disabled computer users to "type" using only the gaze of their eyes, according to a report published in the journal Nature.

"The aim was to come up with a system that might be as fast with a keyboard, but not require you to have ten fingers and the ability to use a keyboard," lead author Dr. David MacKay, a member of the physics department at the University of Cambridge, told Reuters Health.

The program, dubbed Dasher, allows computer users to visually flip through an on-screen alphabet to consecutively select letters to form a word. The system can be controlled by a computer mouse, rollerball or an eye-tracking device that takes into account a user's eye motions. In addition, the software program infers the writer's intentions to complete the word or even the phrase.

Traditional on-screen keyboard systems feature eye-tracking devices that require the user to direct their eye to the traditional QWERTY keyboard displayed on the screen. Researchers said Dasher was an improvement over such systems.

"To stare at the keys one at a time on an onscreen keyboard is exhausting," MacKay noted. "Your eyes didn't evolve to push buttons. This is more fun. It feels like a natural activity for the eyes to be engaged in."

MacKay and colleague Dr. David J. Ward describe the benefits of using Dasher with an eye-tracker system in the August 22nd issue of Nature. The researchers had two novice users and two experienced users use the Dasher system, while others used a traditional onscreen keyboard system.

"The fastest speed we were able to get using the standard on-screen keyboard was 15 words per minute, with 20% of words misspelled," MacKay said. "With Dasher, after an hour of practice, we were able to write up to 25 words per minute, and the percentage of words misspelled is down below 5%."

MacKay conceived the Dasher system five years to better serve the severely disabled community, as well as for typists who use personal digital assistants and Japanese users limited by the traditional keyboard.

MacKay said the researchers are making the software freely available to all interested consumers at the Web Site: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/. He estimates that around 50,000 users have downloaded the software to date.

Source: http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/

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