Design and evaluation of a public installation of an eye-gaze system

This article evaluates an eye-tracking device ("I Can Speak With My Eyes") designed for a museum exhibition. An eye-tracking system is designed not only for able individuals, but also for bedridden patients or physically handicapped people who intend to use computers. With one video CCD camera and frame grabber analyzing a series of images taken of the human pupil gazing at a screen, an auto-range-finding algorithm can be used to obtain the location of the pupil in real time. The computers will produce speech according to the location of where the eyes are gazing. In essence, the participants can speak with their eyes to achieve the advantages of learning and communicating. After the system was implemented, an experimental evaluation with innovation diffusion theory was conducted to survey users' feelings regarding the system. The implications of the evaluation findings are discussed to aid further research and education.