Innovation in micro actuators and Big Data technology transform visually impaired daily life activities and Improve their access to information technology resources

It is indeed very alarming when we learn that every five seconds one person in the world goes blind. 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide. 39 million are blind and 246 have low vision, 90% of the world's visually impaired live in developing countries. This blind and visually impaired community Tactile and Braille is the most efficient possible way to read, write and interact with latest information technology resources. There are many outstanding efforts have been done on previous decades to improve this community quality of life. This paper presents the current state of the art of the current micro actuators technology and its latest development for visually impaired information technology access application. It is also presents innovative tactile graphical display using electro rheological fluid micro actuators for the visually impaired people information technology (IT) access application. The display consists of 124x4 dots. Each dot is a micro electro rheological fluid actuator. The micro-actuator is designed based on linear vertical movement principles. An advanced software tools and embedded system based on voltage matrix manipulation are developed, to provide the graphical display near real time control. The actuator design and development process and software control tools is presented in this paper. Prototype size 124x4 dots, on a matrix form, of 2.54mm pitch, was manufactured. The experimental tests carried out into the prototype showed a close agreement with the standard criteria of Tactile Braille applications. The stroke and dynamic time response test showed the practicability of the developed graphical tactile display, for visually impaired IT access applications

Synchronizing Audio and Haptic to Read Webpage

Constantly emerging technologies present new interactive ways to convey information on the Web. The new and enhanced website design has gradually improved sighted users‟ understanding on the Web content but on the other hand, it creates more obstacles to the visually impaired. The significant technological gap in assistive technology and the Web presents on-going challenges to maintain web accessibility, especially for disabled users. The limitations of current assistive technology to convey non-textual information including text attributes such as bold, underline, and italic from the Web further restrict the visually impaired from acquiring comprehensive understanding of the Web content. This project addresses this issues by investigating the problems faced by the visually impaired when using the current assistive technology. The significance of text attributes to support accessibility and improve understanding of the Web content is also being studied. For this purpose several qualitative and quantitative data collection methods are adopted to test the hypotheses. The project also examines the relationship between multimodal technology using audio and haptic modalities and the mental model generated by the visually impaired while accessing webpage. The findings are then used as a framework to develop a system that synchronizes audio and haptic to read webpages and represents text attributes to visually impaired users is to be develop. From the prototype built, pilot testing and user testing are conducted to evaluate the system. The result and recommendations are shared at the end of project for future enhancement

A toolkit for interactive exhibitions for the partially sighted and blind

Exhibitions in museums, art galleries and other cultural centres are generally designed for normally sighted visitors and are therefore not easily accessible for partially sighted or blind persons. To make exhibitions more suitable for the visually impaired, interactive installations should be offered which take the special human factors requirements of the visually impaired into consideration and enable them to examine exhibits without assistance. To keep installation costs low, it is desirable to have a single system that can be used for different exhibitions. The project described here aimed to address and solve these problems, firstly through the design of various interactivity scenarios, which take into account the capabilities and disabilities of visually impaired people, and secondly through the development of a flexible and reusable installation kit for providing the interactivities. The functionality of the tool-kit prototype was proven by successfully testing an exemplary installation for a photographer who was looking for new ways of presenting his documentary photographs about blindness to partially sighted and sighted audiences. The installation kit has the advantage of being made up of commercially available components and therefore low-cost; it can be used for any kind of interactive installation and is beneficial for visually impaired as well as normally sighted people

Voice Based Email System

As the technology advances the applications available for users can be made more user-friendly. This Voice Based Email System is developed for the people who require comfort and who are physically challenged. With the advent of technology, many technological solutions have been implemented so that people get benefited by utilizing them. Considering it as a key idea we propose to develop an application, Voice Based Email System which will be useful for every person to access the email functionalities in a hassle free manner. We have used 'Text to Speech' and �Speech to Text� voice converter named �Speech Recognition Anywhere� to facilitate sending and reading of emails. The speech synthesis can read aloud any written text avoiding eye strain and save time reading on computer. The existing email system, its drawbacks and our proposed methodology to overcome them have been discussed in this paper. Related work that has been done already is referred and taken as a guideline to finish our system

Teaching Russian (FL) to visually impaired students during COVID: technological tools, teaching strategies, and digital materials

With the transition of traditional programs to emergency remote teaching contexts due to the COVID-19 crisis, we have been faced with a challenge that primarily concerns access to instruction for all students. This unprecedented situation has reshaped the issue of inclusive education. This paper aims at furthering the debate on inclusive distance education in Russian language learning by presenting the experience of teaching Russian as a foreign language (FL) at an elementary level to a group of 20 Italian native learners, including some who are visually impaired (VI). The course took place in Autumn 2020 and was originally planned as a conventional in-person class, but due to the pandemic was radically redesigned. The paper is organized around three main sections. The first section provides an overview of inclusive education policy within European and Italian contexts. The second section presents insights into visual impairment and a short review of the literature and research studies pertaining to FL education of VI children, youth, and adults. The third section provides a critical survey of the tools, strategies, and materials used in the course. In the concluding part we discuss the positive implications of merging distance and inclusive forms of education in the light of our experienc

A conceptual multi-model HCI model for the blind

The ability for blind people to read and write Braille aids literacy development. A good level of literacy enables a person to function well in society in terms of employment, education and daily living. The learning of Braille has traditionally been done with hard copy Braille produced by manual and more recently electronic Braille writers and printers. Curtin University is developing an electronic Braille writer and the research on an interface for Braille keyboard devices, presented in this thesis, forms part of the Curtin University Brailler project.The Design Science approach was the research method chosen for this research because of the flexibility of the approach and because it focuses upon the building of artefacts and theory development. The small sample size meant that both individual interviews and a focus group were employed to gather relevant data from respondents. The literature review covers a variety of areas related to computer interfaces and Braille keyboard devices. A key finding is that the interaction paradigm for Braille keyboard devices needs to differ to interfaces for sighted individuals because of the audio, tactile and serial nature of the information gathering strategies employed by blind people as compared with the visual and spatial information gathering strategies employed by sighted individuals. In terms of usability attributes designed to evaluate the interface consistency was found to be a key factor because of its importance to learning and memory retention.However, two main functions carried out on a computer system are navigating and editing. Thus the model of interface for Braille keyboard devices presented in this thesis focuses upon navigation support and editing support.Feedback was sort from by interviews with individuals and a focus group. Individual interviews were conducted face to face and via the telephone and the focus group was conducted via Skype conference call to enable participants from all over the world to provide feedback on the model.The model was evaluated using usability attributes. Usability was important to the respondents, in particular consistency, learnability, simplicity and ease of use were important. The concept of rich navigation and infinitely definable key maps were understood by respondents and supported. Braille output is essential including the ability to show formatting information in Braille.The limitations of the research included the few respondents to the interviews and the choice to focus upon a theoretical model rather than implementing the model on an actual device. Future research opportunities include implementing the interface concepts from the model on to touch screen devices to aid further development of the interface and implementing the interface on a physical device such as the Curtin University Brailler