Just Look: The Benefits of Gaze-Activated Voice Input in the Car

Voice interaction provides a natural and efficient form of communication with our cars. Current vehicles require the driver to push a button or to utter an artificial keyword before they can use speech input. This limits the potential naturalness and efficiency of voice input. In human communication, we usually use eye contact to express our intention to communicate with others. We conducted a user study with 25 participants that investigated gaze as a means to activate speech input while being occupied with a primary task. Our results indicated a strong dependency on the task. For tasks that refer to information on the screen, gaze activation was superior to push-to-talk and keyword, but it was less valuable if the task had no relation to screen content. We conclude that gaze cannot replace other modes for activation, but it can boost efficiency and user experience for display related tasks.