Inclusive speech interaction techniques for creative object rotation

Abstract Speech interaction holds significant potential to make creative visual design activities more inclusive for people with physical impairments, although no work has yet investigated the feasibility of graphical object rotation via voice control. An elicitation study with disabled participants ( N = 12) is initially presented where candidate voice commands for rotation actions are identified. The use of these commands is then evaluated in an exploratory study with people who have physical impairments ( N = 12). Results found all participants could successfully complete a series of rotation tasks, although interaction issues were also identified (e.g., estimating rotation transformation angles). To further investigate these challenges, three different voice-controlled rotation approaches were developed: Baseline-Rotation, Fixed-Jumps, and Animation-Rotation. These methods were evaluated with disabled participants ( N = 25) with results highlighting that all three approaches supported users in successfully rotating graphical objects, although Animation-Rotation was found to be more efficient and usable than the other methods.