Hyunjin Ahn
ABSTRACT
The rapid spread of smartphones based on touch interfaces is now playing a serious role in the digital divide to the physically disabled, especially to people with motor impairments. Motor impairments often result in muscle weakness, poor stamina, lack of muscle control, or total paralysis making it hard to fine- control fingers, which is essential to touch interactions. Through observation and in-depth interviews, we reached a design decision that an electric wheelchair joystick is a very viable interface device for users with motor impairments. Based on the findings, we developed Octopus Launcher, which is a solution to help motor impaired users to utilize smartphones by controlling the cursor on the smartphone screen using the joystick. Octopus Launcher takes advantage of the eight directional controls of a joystick readily equipped in electric wheelchairs. The launcher is designed to control various touch interactions as well as hardware buttons by use of a joystick on a wheelchair. Octopus Launcher is an interaction framework that enables many disabled people who can use the eight-direction joystick to control a smartphone.
Supplemental Material
Available for Download
Zip file containing a PDF of the Accompanying Poster
- Anthony, L., Kim, Y., Findlater, L. 2013. Analyzing user- generated YouTube videos to understand touchscreen use by people with motor impairments. In Proceedings of CHI 2013, 1223--1232. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Infogrip. (n.d). BIGtrack Trackball. http://www.infogrip.com/bigtrack-trackball.html.Google Scholar
- International Neuromodulation Society http://www.neuromodulation.com/motor-impairmentGoogle Scholar
- Dynamic Controls. (n.d). iPortal Mouse Mover + Accessibility. http://www.dynamiccontrols.com/iportal/.Google Scholar
- Lab-Orange. (n.d.). One-Button Phone App http://laborange.fr/.Google Scholar
- Salivia, G. and Hourcade, J. PointAssist: assisting individuals with motor impairments. In Proceedings of CHI 2013, 1213--1222. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Origin Instruments. (n.d). Sip/Puff Switch. http://www.orin.com/access/sip_puff/.Google Scholar
- Trewin, S., Swart, C., and Pettick, D. Physical accessibility of touchscreen smartphones. In Proceeding of ASSETS 2013, 1--8. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Use octopus launcher like your hands: joystick-based smartphone control solution for motor impaired people in electric wheelchairs
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