AVIN (Assisted visual interactive notepad): a novel interface design to expedite the eye writing experience

Eye typing, which utilizes eye gaze input to interact with computers, provides an indispensable means for people with severe disabilities to write, to talk, and to communicate. Despite more than two decades' of research into eye typing (which, for the most part, focused on the hardware/technical aspects associated with implementing a system), there lacks a well designed solution that has incorporated the key research findings and integrated them into a unified system. Hence, we designed and developed a novel user interface AVIN (Assisted Visual Interactive Notepad) for eye writing that expedites the writing workflow to enhance the overall user experience. Our preliminary user testing results showed that a novice user can achieve 7 wpm with an hour's typing practice, and a more experienced user can achieve 15 wpm with ten hours' practice; whereas an expert user can only reach 6-8 wpm using the standard QWERTY design.