July 16, 2008
Technology That Adapts
The basic premise of most technologies is that people need to adapt to the technology to make it function at an optimal level. But shouldn't it ultimately be the other way around? A paper presented at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in Chicago this week describes a system that for the first time offers an instantly customizable approach to user interfaces.
Krzysztof Gajos and colleagues from the University of Washington Department of Computer Science and Engineering have developed a system called Supple. It is primarly designed for the disabled who have a more difficult time adapting to traditional computer interfaces.
Supple, begins with a one-time assessment of a person's mouse pointing, dragging and clicking skills. A ring of dots appears on the screen and as each dot lights up, the user must quickly click on it. The task is repeated with different-sized dots. Other prompts ask the participant to click and drag, select from a list, and click repeatedly on one spot.
An optimization program then calculates how long it would take the person to complete various computer tasks, and in a couple of seconds it creates the interface that maximizes that person's accuracy and speed when using a particular program. Researchers tested the system last summer on six able-bodied people and 11 people with motor impairments. The resulting interfaces showed one size definitely did not fit all.
For example, "a man with severe cerebral palsy used his chin to control a trackball and could move the pointer quickly but spastically. Based on his skills test, Supple generated a user interface where all the targets were bigger than normal, and lists were expanded to minimize scrolling. By contrast, a woman with muscular dystrophy who participated in the study used both hands to move a mouse. She could make very precise movements but moved the cursor very slowly and with great effort because of weak muscles. Based on her results, Supple automatically generated an interface with small buttons and a compressed layout."
One of the researchers pointed out that "from an accessibility standpoint, it's always better to change the environment, rather than use specialized assistive technologies, Supple could be useful for many people with limitations in function, ranging from the elderly, to people with low vision, to people with hand tremors." The program could also be used to create interfaces that can adapt to different sizes of screen, for example on handheld devices.
If you think about applications for the non-diabled, some exist already. For example, if you insert your key into the ignition of a luxury car, the seat and steering wheel automatically adjust to preprogrammed body proportions or, as you walk through the rooms of Bill Gates' mansion, each room adjust its lighting, temperature and music to accommodate your personal preference.
Artificial Intelligence Research, University of Washington
Twenty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
The Supple Toolkit is an open source project released under the Apache License. It contains the core SUPPLE libraries for building Supple applications and rendering.
You can download the latest toolkit release here.