Mobile Head Tracking for eCommerce and Beyond
This addresses accessibility challenges in eCommerce for individuals with motor impairments, though it is incremental as it adapts existing head-tracking technology to smartphones.
The paper tackles the problem of online shopping accessibility for people with motor impairments by implementing an open-source head-tracking button for iPhone X, enabling hands-free browsing and actions in eCommerce apps, with user studies showing functionality across different distances.
Shopping is difficult for people with motor impairments. This includes online shopping. Proprietary software can emulate mouse and keyboard via head tracking. However, such a solution is not common for smartphones. Unlike desktop and laptop computers, they are also much easier to carry indoors and outdoors.To address this, we implement and open source button that is sensitive to head movements tracked from the front camera of iPhone X. This allows developers to integrate in eCommerce applications easily without requiring specialized knowledge. Other applications include gaming and use in hands-free situations such as during cooking, auto-repair. We built a sample online shopping application that allows users to easily browse between items from various categories and take relevant action just by head movements. We present results of user studies on this sample application and also include sensitivity studies based on two independent tests performed at 3 different distances to the screen.