Abstract:
Over the past decade, many researches have been done on keyboard layout design for eye text entry of an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) for disabled people. However, these are insufficient of works in Thailand. The existing works on the eye text entry system have expended, and the Thai traditional keyboard layouts in the system are unsuitable for eye-gaze control interface.
This thesis presents a computer-aided design technique for a new Thai virtual keyboard layout. The designing tests to find out the optimal layout for a typing with eye-gaze control interface by applying constraints to differential evolution algorithm (DEA). Three shapes (rectangular, circular, and hexagonal) on-screen keyboard layout designs were developed with two techniques (one page standing and menu-augment) to find a layout that would be suitable for the eye text entry. This thesis modeled performance using a modified Fitts law model. Results indicated that the performance analysis of new Thai virtual keyboard layout performs is better than the traditional Thai keyboard layout. Additionally, to see whether the advantage exists in real usage, this thesis conducted an experiment with 30 participants tested eye text entry speed and accuracy on the keyboard application, which used low-cost eye tracking devices. Consequently, the experiment with the metrics performance analysis showed that the menu-augment Thai keyboard layout can be saved typing time more than the one page keyboard layout. The average number of typing speed trials is 10 words/minute with 300 milliseconds of dwell time.