In public display contexts, interactions are spontaneous and have to work without preparation. We propose gaze as a modality for such con- texts, as gaze is always at the ready, and a natural indicator of the user’s interest. We present GazeHorizon, a system that demonstrates sponta- neous gaze interaction, enabling users to walk up to a display and navi- gate content using their eyes only. GazeHorizon is extemporaneous and optimised for instantaneous usability by any user without prior configura- tion, calibration or training. The system provides interactive assistance to bootstrap gaze interaction with unaware users, employs a single off-the- shelf web camera and computer vision for person-independent tracking of the horizontal gaze direction, and maps this input to rate-controlled nav- igation of horizontally arranged content. We have evaluated GazeHorizon through a series of field studies, culminating in a four-day deployment in a public environment during which over a hundred passers-by interacted with it, unprompted and unassisted. We realised that since eye move- ments are subtle, users cannot learn gaze interaction from only observing others, and as a results guidance is required.

@article{zhang15_puc,
  title = {Eye tracking for public displays in the wild},
  author = {Yanxia Zhang and Ming Ki Chong and J\"org M\"uller and Andreas Bulling and Hans Gellersen},
  year = {2015},
  journal = {Springer Personal and Ubiquitous Computing},
  volume = {19},
  number = {5},
  pages = {967-981},
  doi = {10.1007/s00779-015-0866-8},
  keywords = {Eye tracking; Gaze interaction; Public displays; Scrolling; Calibration-free; In-the-wild study; Deployment},
}