ABSTRACT We present the evaluation of BrailleTouch, an accessible keyboard for blind users on touchscreen smartphones. Based on the standard Perkins Brailler, BrailleTouch implements a six-key chorded braille soft keyboard. Eleven blind... more
ABSTRACT We present the evaluation of BrailleTouch, an accessible keyboard for blind users on touchscreen smartphones. Based on the standard Perkins Brailler, BrailleTouch implements a six-key chorded braille soft keyboard. Eleven blind participants typed for 165 twenty-minute sessions on three mobile devices: 1) BrailleTouch on a smartphone; 2) a soft braille keyboard on a touchscreen tablet; and 3) a commercial braille keyboard with physical keys. Expert blind users averaged 23.2 words per minute (wpm) on the BrailleTouch smartphone. The fastest participant, a touchscreen novice, achieved 32.1 wpm during his first session. Overall, participants were able to transfer their existing braille typing skills to a touchscreen device within an hour of practice. We report the speed for braille text entry on three mobile devices, an in depth error analysis, and the lessons learned for the design and evaluation of accessible and eyes-free soft keyboards.
Publication Date: 2012
Publication Name: MobileHCI'12 - Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services
ABSTRACT Gesture-based touch screen user interfaces, when designed to be accessible to blind users, can be an effective mode of interaction for those users. However, current accessible touch screen interaction techniques suffer from one... more
ABSTRACT Gesture-based touch screen user interfaces, when designed to be accessible to blind users, can be an effective mode of interaction for those users. However, current accessible touch screen interaction techniques suffer from one serious limitation: they are only usable on devices that have been explicitly designed to support them. Access Lens is a new interaction method that uses computer vision-based gesture tracking to enable blind people to use accessible gestures on paper documents and other physical objects, such as product packages, device screens, and home appliances. This paper describes the development of Access Lens hardware and software, the iterative design of Access Lens in collaboration with blind computer users, and opportunities for future development.
Publication Date: 2013
Publication Name: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '13
ABSTRACT Gesture-based touch screen user interfaces, when designed to be accessible to blind users, can be an effective mode of interaction for those users. However, current accessible touch screen interaction techniques suffer from one... more
ABSTRACT Gesture-based touch screen user interfaces, when designed to be accessible to blind users, can be an effective mode of interaction for those users. However, current accessible touch screen interaction techniques suffer from one serious limitation: they are only usable on devices that have been explicitly designed to support them. Access Lens is a new interaction method that uses computer vision-based gesture tracking to enable blind people to use accessible gestures on paper documents and other physical objects, such as product packages, device screens, and home appliances. This paper describes the development of Access Lens hardware and software, the iterative design of Access Lens in collaboration with blind computer users, and opportunities for future development.
ABSTRACT We report the results of a pilot study that explores potential uses for BrailleTouch in the instruction of braille literacy for the visually impaired. BrailleTouch is an eyes-free text entry application for smart phones. We... more
ABSTRACT We report the results of a pilot study that explores potential uses for BrailleTouch in the instruction of braille literacy for the visually impaired. BrailleTouch is an eyes-free text entry application for smart phones. We conducted individual semi-structured interviews and a focus group with four domain expert participants.
Publication Date: 2012
Publication Name: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM annual conference extended abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts - CHI EA '12
Publication Name: Proceedings of the 14th international conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile devices and services companion - MobileHCI '12
ABSTRACT We present the evaluation of BrailleTouch, an accessible keyboard for blind users on touchscreen smartphones. Based on the standard Perkins Brailler, BrailleTouch implements a six-key chorded braille soft keyboard. Eleven blind... more
ABSTRACT We present the evaluation of BrailleTouch, an accessible keyboard for blind users on touchscreen smartphones. Based on the standard Perkins Brailler, BrailleTouch implements a six-key chorded braille soft keyboard. Eleven blind participants typed for 165 twenty-minute sessions on three mobile devices: 1) BrailleTouch on a smartphone; 2) a soft braille keyboard on a touchscreen tablet; and 3) a commercial braille keyboard with physical keys. Expert blind users averaged 23.2 words per minute (wpm) on the BrailleTouch smartphone. The fastest participant, a touchscreen novice, achieved 32.1 wpm during his first session. Overall, participants were able to transfer their existing braille typing skills to a touchscreen device within an hour of practice. We report the speed for braille text entry on three mobile devices, an in depth error analysis, and the lessons learned for the design and evaluation of accessible and eyes-free soft keyboards.
Publication Date: 2012
Publication Name: MobileHCI'12 - Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services
