A Two-Level Highlighting technique based on gaze direction to improve targets pointing and selection on a touch screen

In this paper, we present an approach to improve pointing methods and target selection on tactile human-machine interfaces. The proposed approach defines a two-level highlighting technique (TLH) based on the direction of gaze for target selection on HMIs on a touch screen. The technique is based on the orientation of the user's head to approximate the direction of his gaze and uses this data to preselect the potential targets to be selected by the user. An experimental system with a multimodal interface has been prototyped to assess the impact of TLH on target selection on a touch screen, to compare its performance with that of traditional methods (mouse and touch). We conducted an experiment to assess the effectiveness of our proposition in objective terms of the rate of selection errors made, the time for completion of the task. We also made a subjective estimate of ease of use, suitability for selection, confidence brought by the TLH, and contribution of TLH to improving the selection of targets. Statistical results have shown that the proposed TLH significantly reduces the selection error rate and the time to complete tasks. For the completion time, the TLH added to the touch (TLHT) using the direction of the gaze gave performances equal to those obtained using the TLH added to the mouse cursor (TLHM). Finally, participants found that TLH has significantly improved target selection methods and expressed the wish to be able to use it in the future