The Interface Usage Skills Test: An Open Source Tool for Quantitative Evaluation in Real Time for Clinicians and Researchers

TL;DR

This paper introduces an open source tool designed to objectively and automatically measure user skill in operating different control interfaces for assistive machines, enhancing training and safety.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel open source tool for real-time quantitative evaluation of interface usage skills in clinicians and researchers.

Findings

Provides a standardized method for skill assessment

Enables real-time, objective measurement of interface proficiency

Supports diverse control interfaces

Abstract

Assistive machines endow people with limited mobility the opportunity to live more independently. However, operating these machines poses risks to the safety of the human operator as well as the surrounding environment. Thus, proper user training is an essential step towards independent control and use of functionally assistive machines. The human operator can use a variety of control interfaces to issue control signals to the device, depending on the residual mobility and level of injury of the human operator. Proficiency in operating the interface of choice precedes the skill in operating the assistive machine. In this systems paper, we present an open source tool for automatically and objectively quantifying user skill in operating various interface devices.