Design of GUI – Button/object sizes?

[Mikael]

We are currently trying to create a GUI for application mainly controlled by eye tracking. The user will basically look at objects in the menu (and the corresponding object will light up) and then press a physical button to mark that the application should activate that chosen object.

We were planning to have the menu along upper edge of the screen, and there have a set of buttons. Our problem is that we are not sure how big or small these buttons must be so that the user can successfully pick one (without getting tangled with nearby buttons). We were thinking about having about 15 objects in a row on a screen that is approximately 60 cms wide. If possible we would therefore like to know if:

1. Is there any recommended size for objects/buttons selected with eye trackers?

2. Is there any recommended size for minimum distance between objects selected with eye tracking?

We are going to test our application ourselves but any tips we can get would be of great help to us!

[Robert [Tobii]]

Hi @micke,

Thank you for two good questions. We do not have any specific recommendation, but it is good that you do not make the buttons too small. For some people, the gaze point signal can be quite noisy. The good news is that the EyeX Engine has some functionality to filter the data and use object tracking/snapping to make it easier for the user to select the correct button.

One design you can think about, which is more important than the button size, is where to place the menu. If you place it in the top of the screen, there will be a larger angle between the eye tracker normal vector and the gaze vector, which can make the gaze data even noisier. A suggestion would be to have a triggered menu that pops up when you press a key and uses the center part of the screen to present the menu alternatives, similar to a “command rose” in computer games. But it depends on your use case if this is possible alternative.

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