Exploring the Feasibility of Gaze-Based Navigation Across Path Types

2025-10-08

AI Summary

Gaze-based navigation in extended reality (XR) lacks systematic evaluation of how path geometry—specifically linear, narrowing, and circular trajectories—affects performance and usability. Method: A controlled user study was conducted using eye-tracking–enabled XR head-mounted displays to quantitatively compare these three path types across navigation efficiency, accuracy, and subjective user experience. Key parameters—including path curvature, width variation, and gaze dwell-time threshold—were systematically varied and measured. Contribution/Results: The study identifies optimal parameter ranges and failure conditions for each path type, establishing clear boundaries for effective gaze-driven navigation. It reveals that linear paths maximize efficiency and accuracy, while narrowing and circular paths impose stricter constraints on curvature and dwell time to maintain usability. These findings provide empirically grounded, actionable design guidelines for gaze-driven interaction systems in XR, addressing a critical gap in the evaluation of path topology for gaze navigation.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Search and Optimization: Evaluation and Analysis
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Geometric, Spatial, and Temporal Reasoning

Application Category

• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Metrics for user behavior and evaluating success
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web performance, measurement, and characterization

Abstract

Gaze input, as a modality inherently conveying user intent, offers intuitive and immersive experiences in extended reality (XR). With eye-tracking now being a standard feature in modern XR headsets, gaze has been extensively applied to tasks such as selection, text entry, and object manipulation. However, gaze based navigation despite being a fundamental interaction task remains largely underexplored. In particular, little is known about which path types are well suited for gaze navigation and under what conditions it performs effectively. To bridge this gap, we conducted a controlled user study evaluating gaze-based navigation across three representative path types: linear, narrowing, and circular. Our findings reveal distinct performance characteristics and parameter ranges for each path type, offering design insights and practical guidelines for future gaze-driven navigation systems in XR.

Problem

• Exploring gaze-based navigation feasibility across path types
• Identifying suitable path conditions for effective gaze navigation
• Evaluating performance characteristics for XR navigation systems

Innovation

• Evaluated gaze navigation across linear narrowing circular paths
• Identified distinct performance characteristics for each path type
• Provided design insights for future XR gaze navigation systems