A usability evaluation of two virtual aids to enhance cursor accessibility for people with motor impairments

Abstract

Basic actions in the context of Web browsing, such as pointing at and clicking on links, can be seriously hindered by dexterity impairments affecting the use of hands and arms. In this paper, we present two different virtual aids for assisting motor-impaired users when pointing at and clicking on links. One of them, the "circular cursor", aims at reducing the level of accuracy required for clicking on links, whereas the other one, the "cross cursor", aims at reducing target distance for pointing at them. We conducted a web-based usability testing for both cursors with 9 motor-impaired and 6 able-bodied users applying their usual pointing device (4 keyboard, 4 joystick, 1 trackball and 6 mouse). The results show that motor-impaired participants mainly preferred one of either of the two variants proposed to the traditional cursor without any virtual aid for Web browsing.