Inclusive Voice Interaction Techniques for Creative Object Positioning

People with physical impairments can experience challenges when using traditional input devices such as a mouse and keyboard for creative visual design work. Speech interaction is an alternative input method that can facilitate a more inclusive approach for supporting creative work. However, there has been a lack of work to date investigating how to position and move creative assets (e.g. images) around a digital workspace via speech interaction techniques. We present three multimodal speech interaction approaches to support the positioning of graphical objects around a design canvas via speech commands: Speed-based Control, Location Guides, and Positional Guides. A user evaluation with non-disabled participants (N=30) found that the Location Guides approach was significantly more efficient, accurate, and usable for the positioning of images when compared with the other methods. A follow-up study with physically impaired users (N=6) demonstrated they were able to effectively position images around a design canvas using the Location Guides technique with participants also rating this approach as exhibiting a high level of usability.