The Interface Development of Chinese DAISY Player Operation Procedure

Po-Hsin Huang Department of Industrial Engineer and Engineering Management

National Tsing Hua University HsinChu, Taiwan, ROC

s9834815@m98.nthu.edu.tw

Jan Li Wang National Center for High-Performance Computing

National Applied Research Laboratories Hsinchu, Taiwan, ROC

wangjanli@nchc.narl.org.tw

Sheue-Ling Hwang Department of Industrial Engineer and Engineering Management

National Tsing Hua University Hsinchu, Taiwan, ROC

slhwang@ie.nthu.edu.tw

Yuan-Fu Liao Department of Electronic Engineering

National Taipei University of Technology Taipei, Taiwan, ROC yfliao@ntut.edu.tw

Abstract—The Digital Accessible Information SYstem, or DAISY, is an international standard by which electronic books are produced for print disabled individuals. There are tens of millions of visually impaired people using the Chinese language. The DAISY reader/player has tremendous potential in giving them the same access to books that the general public has. This research examines the development of a Chinese-language user interface for a DAISY player prototype that can be used by Chinese users. The user interface is designed based on universal design rules and American National Standards Institute (ANSI)/National Information Standards Organization (NISO) Z39.86 2005. The design results are evaluated by using the Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection Rules (GOMS) for experiments. Three commercial DAISY players and the Chinese language user interface prototype designs are compared by a group of visually impaired subjects in an experiment consisting of four tasks. The operating times, operating errors, and the mental workloads on the four interfaces are measured and compared for the experiment. The results of the experiment indicate that the prototype design has great potential and, as a result, will be included in the next version of the DAISY player.

Keywords-visually impaired people; GOMS; DAISY; universal design; user interface

I. INTRODUCTION According to the Department of Statistics, Ministry of the

Interior, Republic of China, as of December 2011, there were approximately 56,000 legally blind individuals living in Taiwan. From 2002~2011, on average, the number of people who became legally blind in Taiwan each year was 1,500, most of which became blind due to disease. It is very difficult for these newly-blind individuals to find and keep employment, learn new skills, and even maintain an acceptable daily living standard if adequate assistive tools are not available to them.

It is imperative to design "user-friendly" assistive tools for the visually impaired in order to allow them access to the

information they need. There are already some DAISY players available on the market such as Plextalk, Victor Stream, and Booksense, but they do not provide voice prompts in Mandarin, therefore, to develop a high quality and easy-to-use Chinese voice Mandarin interface DAISY player is the goal of this research.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Universal Design In this study, universal design rules are considered as the

product design principles. In order to make sure that the experiences' of potential users can also be included, twelve visually impaired people are invited to participate in the development process.

2.1.1 The Definition of Universal Design The concept of universal design is defined as the design

of products and environments that are usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design [1]. It is generally agreed that the term universal design first entered into popular usage in the mid-1980’s Nowadays the concept has spread worldwide and is applied often. Disability is just one of many characteristics that an individual might possess. Disabled individuals should have equal right to information access.

2.1.2 Universal Design Principles The seven principles of universal design rules are [2 (1) Principle one: Equitable use. (2) Principle two: Flexibility in use. (3) Principle three: Simple and intuitive use. (4) Principle four: Perceptible information. (5) Principle five: Tolerance for error. (6) Principle six: Low physical effort. (7) Principle seven: Size and space for approach and use.

2.2 Digital Accessible Information SYstem (DAISY) DAISY is the acronym for Digital Accessible

Information SYstem. It is the universal standard of reading for the visually impaired. It integrates audio and images to

2012 International Symposium on Computer, Consumer and Control

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DOI 10.1109/IS3C.2012.86

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2012 International Symposium on Computer, Consumer and Control

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DOI 10.1109/IS3C.2012.86

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transmit information to the visually impaired (as well as the dyslexic).

2.2.1 The DAISY Standard and Technology In 1996, the Daisy Consortium developed a new

multimedia book standard for the visually impaired. The DAISY 2.0 specification was approved and published on the DAISY Web site in 1998. The DAISY 2.0 is designed to provide the blind and visually impaired a means by which to navigate a digital human recording by headings and page numbers. The standard moved from using XHTML in DAISY 2 to using XML in DAISY 3[3].

2.2.2 DAISY Player DAISY playback devices have been developed primarily

with visually impaired users in mind. DAISY books can be read on special players that have SD card and/or USB input ports. The visually impaired also can read digital talking books (DTB) anywhere. Table I shows the current DAISY players. Each player has a different number of buttons and operation procedures.

TABLE I. DAISY PLAYERS

2.3 The Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection Rules

(GOMS) GOMS is an acronym for “Goals, Operators, Methods,

and Selection Rules,” which serves as the foundation for this engineering model.

According to the GOMS model, cognitive structure consists of four components: (1) a set of goals, (2) a set of operators, (3) a set of methods for achieving the goals, and (4) a set of selection rules for choosing among competing methods. For any given task, a particular GOMS structure can be constructed and used to predict the time required to complete the task. In addition, the model can be used to identify and predict the effects of errors on task performance [4].

2.3.2 The GOMS Family GOMS is a “family” of four widely-accepted techniques:

(1) Card, Moran, and Newell-GOMS (CMN-GOMS); (2) Keystroke Level Model (KLM); (3) Natural GOMS Language (NGOMSL); and (4) Cognitive, Perceptual, and Motor GOMS (CPM-GOMS) [5].

2.4 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)-Task Load Index The National Aeronautics and Space Administration-

Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) is one of the most widely used tools for assessing subjective workload. It has been popularly tested and frequently used in human performance research [6]. The NASA-TLX uses six dimensions to assess

mental workload: (1) mental demand, (2) physical demand, (3) temporal demand, (4) performance, (5) effort, and (6) frustration. A score from 0 to 100, assigned to the nearest point 5, is obtained on each scale. Paired comparisons require the operator to choose which dimension is more relevant to workload across all pairs of the six dimensions [7].

III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Definition of DAISY Player’s Operation Procedure Table II shows the DAISY player’s operation procedure

as defined by experts in the field.

TABLE II. DAISY PLAYER’S OPERATION PROCEDURE

Task Content

Voice Setup

Play DAISY Books

Bookmark

Sleep Timer

Set

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Record

Upload/ Download

Files

3.2 Evaluation of Operation Times and Steps by GOMS Using the GOMS method of assessment, the quality of

the DAISY players' operation steps were measured in this study. Table III shows the analysis of the GOMS results.

TABLE III. OPERATION TIMES AND STEPS (UNIT: SECONDS)

3.3 Experiment

Three DAISY players and the new Chinese language user interface prototype player are provided to twelve visually impaired subjects to execute four experimental tasks on.

3.2.1 Subjects Twelve visually impaired subjects were recruited to take

part in the experiment. 3.2.3 Variables

There are four DAISY players, each player serving as an independent variable. The operating times, number of operation errors, and NASA_TLX scale scores serve as the dependent variables.

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The results were analyzed by analysis of variance

(ANOVA) using Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) 15.0. The data collected during the experiment was collected primarily for comparing the performance of the three DAISY players and the new Chinese language user interface prototype player. Three indicators, those being operating times, operating errors, and NASA-TLX scores, were analyzed.

4.1 Operating Errors Table IV shows the ANOVA of the model is significant

(P-value = 0.003 < 0.05). It indicates the newly revised prototype had the lowest number of operation errors and better than average.

TABLE IV. ANOVA OF OPERATING ERRORS

Source Degree

of Freedom

Sum of Square

Mean of

Square

F-Value

P-Value

Replicate 2 4.875 2.438 0.90 0.415 Task 3 29.417 9.806 3.63 0.022 User 3 20.750 6.917 2.56 0.070

Player 3 44.917 14.972 5.54 0.003* Error 36 97.292 2.703 Total 47 197.250

4.2 Operating times Table V shows the ANOVA of the model is significant

(P-value = 0.007 < 0.05). It indicates the newly revised prototype had the lowest operation times and better than average.

TABLE V. ANOVA OF OPERATING TIMES

Source Degree

of Freedom

Sum of Square

Mean of

Square

F-Value

P-Value

Replicate 2 107.3 53.6 0.21 0.809 Task 3 501.7 167.2 0.66 0.580 User 3 3677.2 1225.7 4.87 0.006

Player 3 3591.2 1197.1 4.75 0.007* Error 36 9067.4 251.9 Total 47 16944.7

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4.3 NASA_ TLX Scores Table VI shows the ANOVA of the model is significant

(P-value = 0.001 < 0.05). This shows the subjects almost recognize the newly revised prototype is better than average.

TABLE VI. ANOVA OF NASA_TLX SCORES

Source Degree

of Freedom

Sum of Square

Mean of

Square

F-Value

P-Value

Replicate 2 51470 25735 0.85 0.436 Task 3 182806 60935 2.01 0.129 User 3 294873 98291 3.25 0.033

Player 3 646519 215506 7.12 0.001* Error 36 1089430 30262 Total 47 2265098

V. CONCLUSION This study shows that, within the parameters observed,

the prototype is easier to use as compared with the other three DAISY players compared in the experiment. The conclusions are:

(1) The Chinese language user interface prototype player operating procedure interface concept will be further developed for use in the next-generation DAISY player.

(2) Using the GOMS method to evaluate the operating procedure is useful in discovering which tasks take the longest time to complete, so that the interface can be improved so as to reduce both operating time and number of steps needed to complete individual tasks. The experimental results supports that the GOMS method is effective in this study.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors express their sincere thanks to the National

Science Council of Taiwan, ROC, for their financial support under grant #100-2221-E-027-006.

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[3] E. Tank and C. Frederiksen, “The DAISY Standard: Entering the Global Virtual Library,” LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 55, No. 4, Spring, 2007, pp. 932–949.

[4] D. Kieras, "GOMS models for task analysis," Handbook of Task Analysis for Human-Computer Interaction, London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002, pp. 83-116.

[5] J. Han,"A GOMS-based granular computing model for human-computer interaction design," IEEE International Conference on Digital Object Identifier, 2011, pp. 243 – 248, doi: 10.1109/SOLI.2011.5986563.

[6] J.M.NOYES and D.P.J. BRUNEAU, "A self-analysis of the NASA-TLX workload measure," Ergonomics, vol. 50, Apr. 2007, pp. 514–519.

[7] C. Soga, S. Miyake, and C. Wada1, "Recovery Patterns in the Physiological Responses of the Autonomic Nervous System Induced by Mental Workload," SICE Annual Conference, Sep. 2007, pp. 17-20, doi:10.1109/SICE.2007.4421195.

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