Gaze gestures or dwell-based interaction?

Abstract

The two cardinal problems recognized with gaze-based interaction techniques are: how to avoid unintentional commands, and how to overcome the limited accuracy of eye tracking. Gaze gestures are a relatively new technique for giving commands, which has the potential to overcome these problems. We present a study that compares gaze gestures with dwell selection as an interaction technique. The study involved 12 participants and was performed in the context of using an actual application. The participants gave commands to a 3D immersive game using gaze gestures and dwell icons. We found that gaze gestures are not only a feasible means of issuing commands in the course of game play, but they also exhibited performance that was at least as good as or better than dwell selections. The gesture condition produced less than half of the errors when compared with the dwell condition. The study shows that gestures provide a robust alternative to dwell-based interaction with the reliance on positional accuracy being substantially reduced.