A Performance Evaluation of Nomon: A Flexible Interface for Noisy Single-Switch Users
Nicholas Bonaker, Emli-Mari Nel, Keith Vertanen, Tamara Broderick

TL;DR
This study compares Nomon, a probabilistic single-switch interface, to traditional row-column scanning, demonstrating Nomon's superior speed and ease of use over extended periods and in diverse tasks, including with motor-impaired users.
Contribution
The paper introduces a webcam-based switch to simulate motor-impaired user responses and provides a comprehensive performance evaluation of Nomon versus row-column scanning.
Findings
Users typed faster with Nomon than with row-column scanning.
Nomon improved performance in picture-selection tasks.
Motor-impaired user feedback supports Nomon's effectiveness.
Abstract
Some individuals with motor impairments communicate using a single switch -- such as a button click, air puff, or blink. Row-column scanning provides a method for choosing items arranged in a grid using a single switch. An alternative, Nomon, allows potential selections to be arranged arbitrarily rather than requiring a grid (as desired for gaming, drawing, etc.) -- and provides an alternative probabilistic selection method. While past results suggest that Nomon may be faster and easier to use than row-column scanning, no work has yet quantified performance of the two methods over longer time periods or in tasks beyond writing. In this paper, we also develop and validate a webcam-based switch that allows a user without a motor impairment to approximate the response times of a motor-impaired single switch user; although the approximation is not a replacement for testing with…
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Taxonomy
TopicsAssistive Technology in Communication and Mobility · Digital Accessibility for Disabilities · Gaze Tracking and Assistive Technology
