Adapting Interaction Based on Users' Visual Attention

Successful interaction with many information systems depends on our ability to visually attend to the system feedback as well as to our own actions. However, at a given time, we are able to attend to only a portion of the available information. Among other constraints, what can we attend is limited by the spatial acuity of our eyes. Aware of this limitation, researchers have long pursued interfaces that decrease our dependence on visual attention during interaction. The newly proliferating sensing technologies such as eye and head tracking as well as methods for user modeling provide a novel venue for addressing this limitation: An information system can utilize users' visual attention information to change how it responds to user actions. This dissertation from the field of design distinguishes between different implications of visual attention information for interface design, and identifies visual attention as a measure of user awareness.