ASSISTIVE DESIGN OF CURSORS FOR LOW VISION USERS

The graphical user interface is the most common type of interface in use today. However, its operating environment, which puts great emphasis on relying on users’ visual perception, presents problems for visually impaired users. For low vision users, they have two problems for using the mouse cursor. First, because of reduced visual acuity, they often lose track of the mouse cursor; second, because of a limited ability to distinguish visual details, they often have difficulty positioning the cursor on targets. This research used the experimental method to conduct two experiments. The first is ‘Cursor Position’ and the second is ‘Cursor Selection’. Both of these run subjects through experiments using various cursor styles of different websites to explore the influence of cursor forms to users, and to find the better cursor design for both low vision users and fully sighted users. According to the research result, ‘color adjustment’ and ‘cursor magnification’ are the best cursor styles for fully sighted users in ‘Cursor Position’ experiment. And for low vision users, ‘color adjustment’ is the best cursor style in ‘Cursor Position’ experiment; In ‘Cursor Selection’ experiment, ‘cursor magnification’ is the best cursor style for both low vision users and fully sighted users.