Monday, March 17, 2008

Inspiration: Takehiko Ohno

Working out of NTT Cyber Solutions Laboratories in Japan Takehiko interests lies mainly in eye tracking technology and human computer interaction. He has published several papers on eye tracking technology and interaction methods. The QuickGlance selection method aims to solve the well known Midas-touch problem. The interface contains a specific selection area next to each choice/item which must be fixated to activate the function. There are two major advantages with this. First, the user can look around at the menu items without worrying about accidentally activating something. Second, advanced users can go for the activation area directly without even reading the menu text. Just like most people know the order/location of items on the Windows Start-menu. On the downside this means that all options are displayed on the screen all the time.

Takehiko additionally have published several articles on FreeGaze, a remote based system which allows the user to move around his head freely. The FreeGaze eye tracker at NTT has a 0.28 degree of accuracy and is based on a rather wide stereoscopic corneal reflection method using serveral image processing algorithms described in the papers, which are well written and worth reading.

His research highlights the importance of providing feedback to the user as the major method of reducing error rates. Something that I've taken to heart.

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