CHS: Small: Touchscreen Computer Interfaces for Working Dogs

Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

For nearly a century, assistance dogs have improved the lives of thousands of people with disabilities. These working dogs, which include hearing dogs, guide dogs, service dogs, and medical alert dogs, can provide independence and significantly enhance quality of life. Recent research has shown that the dogs can interact with wearable technology to communicate important information to their handlers, such as a tornado siren sounding. However, in a home environment, they rarely wear their service dog vests or harnesses even though the need for clear communication between dog and handler still exists. The main goal of this research is to explore fundamental aspects of touchscreen interaction for dogs, to support communication between working dogs and their handlers or other humans. Project outcomes will extend the state of the art in virtual touchscreen interfaces to animals, which is a new domain. The work will contribute to the new field of Animal-Computer Interfaces, providing us with a better understanding of the physical and cognitive abilities of dogs, and to what extent they can interact with humans through technology. In addition to the direct impact of further improving the quality of life for people with disabilities, the technologies developed as part of this research will ultimately benefit all users; pet dogs could be trained to use a touchscreen to request to go out, or to alert their owners of an intruder on the property, while medical alert dogs could directly summon help through a touchscreen. Providing dogs with the ability to express specific needs to a handler could benefit the dogs as well, enhancing their safety and well-being. The PI and her team will examine and adapt usability analysis and design techniques from the human field, such as Fitt's law and Power Law of Practice, to animal interactions, expanding the body of knowledge in interactive computing. They will explore the physical and cognitive abilities of dogs to interact with touchscreens, as well as determining what dogs can sense and comprehend from virtual displays. Three specific objectives will be addressed. 1. To examine factors in the design of dog-appropriate touchscreen affordances and to create corresponding design guidelines for developing touchscreen interfaces for working dogs. The PI will experiment with size, color, shape, and placement of icons to determine what dogs can best comprehend. She will also test the limits of canine cognitive load in remembering and differentiating patterns. 2. To create a working dog touchscreen interface prototype and perform a formal usability study with a variety of working dogs. Building on the results of the first objective, the PI will create a touchscreen system and design a training protocol to familiarize working dogs with touchscreen tasks. She will then perform a study employing usability metrics grounded in human interaction theory to develop fundamental canine-computer interaction theory for virtual displays. 3. To perform a technological probe field case study in the home of an assistance dog and handler to evaluate the effectiveness of a touchscreen system for a working dog. Using the findings from the first two objectives, the PI will create a system and perform an ethnographic study in a home-use scenario.