mBrailler: Multimodal Braille Keyboard for Android

Touchscreen devices have paved their way into the mobile scene, presenting a wide set of possibilities but a comparable number of new challenges, particularly for people who are blind. While these devices have a small number of tactile cues, such as buttons, they provide the opportunity to create novel interaction techniques. In this paper, we present mBrailler. mBrailler is a mobile braille keyboard that combines the benefits of physical keyboards (speed and accuracy) and gestural interfaces (flexibility and personalization). We built an 8-button Braille keyboard that can be attached to the back of mainstream smartphones allowing fast and familiar chorded input. On the other hand,the touchscreen enables thumb entered gestures for more complex text editing operations, such as caret movement, text selection, copy, and paste. This project combines the tactile benefits of Braille typewriters with the customization of smartphone applications. We aim to provide a more efficient and effective typing experience for blind users, thus increasing their productivity with current mobile devices

Virtual Eye – Revolutionizing Vision Assistance For People With Disabilities

Visually challenged individuals have faced numerous challenges in their daily lives. These challenges include: Visually challenged individuals have difficulty reading printed materials, including books, magazines, and newspapers. This limitation can significantly impact their education, as they may not have access to all the materials they need to learn. Moving around in unfamiliar places can be a daunting task for the visually impaired. They may struggle to access digital or printed materials, as these are often not available in accessible formats. It might be difficult for those who are blind to identify objects. This can be frustrating, especially in situations where they are alone and need to identify objects. To address this issue, we are developing a mobile application for visually challenged individuals by providing a range of features such as text-to-speech, speech-to-text, image-to-audio, and PDF-to-audio. It enables visually challenged individuals to access information, read books, identify objects, communicate, and navigate with ease and independence. The app's user-friendly interface can be accessed both manually and by voice command, making it easy to use for people with varying levels of technical expertise. Overall, the Virtual Eye app helps visually challenged individuals lead more fulfilling and independent lives. Overall, Virtual Eye application is an essential tool for visually challenged individuals, helping them navigate their daily lives with ease and independence. With this app, they can access information, communicate, and identify objects without the need for a third party, enhancing their quality of life and sense of autonomy

Pengembangan Aplikasi Pembelajaran Tunanetra (Aptun) Berbasis Teknologi Asistif Untuk Pencarian Konten Pembelajaran Mahasiswa Tunanetra (Peer Review)

Peer Revie

Voice-For-Blind: An Utilizable Email Client for Visually Impaired Users

For people who are sighted, visually impaired, or blind, electronic mail has evolved into a vital tool for collaboration and communication. However, the current email-related activities on smartphones cause a number of problems due to insufficient mapping of haptic feedback, complex text-entry layouts, a variety of screen sizes and orientations, illogical ordering of navigational items, and inconsistent interface design. The Components on touch-screen interfaces that can't be seen can be difficult for blind people to precisely access, making it difficult for them to carry out common mailing tasks such as receiving, sending, organising, managing spam, deleting, searching, and filtering. Due to these issues, blind people are having trouble using smartphones and completing a number of tasks related to email. Junk and Spam email frustration and cognitive overload are additional effects. We proposed Voice-For-Blind an utilizable email client that is friendly to visully imapired individuals to get around the obstacles relating to the usability and accessibility of smartphone-related mailing activities. 38 blind participants in an empirical study who carried out 14 email-related tasks are used to evaluate the proposed email client. The outcomes of this prototype's use demonstrate an elevated accuracy in complettion, improved user experience, and improved touchscreen interface control for basic tasks like email management. The findings show that Voice-For-Blind is an email client that is inclusive of accessibility, giving blind individuals an enhanced user - interface experience and reducing cognitive load when managing emails

AppCase4Blind: una herramienta para asistir a personas no videntes en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje de grafo

La incorporación, integración y aprovechamiento pedagógico de las Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación (TIC) en del Sistema Educativo, se ha convertido en una necesidad esencial para lograr aprendizajes significativos. Las TIC se han transformado en una herramienta de apoyo para la inclusión e integración de personas con discapacidad. Se estima que en el mundo, existen al menos seis millones de personas con algún tipo de discapacidad visual. La Universidad Pública debe asegurar el acceso de los conocimientos a todos aquellos que tomen la decisión de formarse en ella. En este trabajo se presenta una propuesta didáctica para la enseñanza de Grafos, con el fin de integrar estudiantes no videntes o disminuidos visualmente con el resto de los actores intervinientes en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Como resultado se presenta una aplicación móvil atendiendo fundamentalmente a reducir las barreras de accesibilidad presentes en estudiantes ciegos o disminuidos visualmente.XVIII Workshop Tecnología Informática Aplicada en Educación.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informátic

Spoken conversational search: speech-only interactive information retrieval

This research investigates a new interface paradigm for interactive information retrieval (IIR) which forces us to shift away from the classic "ten blue links" search engine results page. Instead we investigate how to present search results through a conversation over a speech-only communication channel where no screen is available. Accessing information via speech is becoming increasingly pervasive and is already important for people with a visual impairment. However, presenting search results over a speech-only communication channel is challenging due to cognitive limitations and the transient nature of audio. Studies have indicated that the implementation of speech recognizers and screen readers must be carefully designed and cannot simply be added to an existing system. Therefore the aim of this research is to develop a new interaction framework for effective and efficient IIR over a speech-only channel: a Spoken Conversational Search System (SCSS) which provides a conversational approach to defining user information needs, presenting results and enabling search reformulations. In order to contribute to a more efficient and effective search experience when using a SCSS, we intend for a tighter integration between document search and conversational processes

Travelling with a Guide Dog: Experiences of People with Vision Impairment

There is considerable research on people with vision impairment (PwVI) in the transport, travel and tourism sectors, which highlights the significance of real-time information and consistency in services to accessibility. Based on interviews with guide dog owners in the United Kingdom, this paper contributes an additional dimension to our understanding of transport accessibility for PwVI by focusing specifically on guide dog owners’ experiences in the travel and tourism sector. A guide dog is more than a mobility tool, but a human–dog partnership that improves the quality of life for PwVI; however, it also introduces constraints related to the dog’s welfare and safety. Further, lack of understanding of guide dog owners’ rights to reasonable accommodation leads to discrimination through service refusals and challenges to service access. This paper concludes that the limited and inconsistent public knowledge of disability diversity has serious ramifications for transport accessibility and suggests specific industry and legislative interventions in response.publishedVersio

"Hey Model!" -- Natural User Interactions and Agency in Accessible Interactive 3D Models

While developments in 3D printing have opened up opportunities for improved access to graphical information for people who are blind or have low vision (BLV), they can provide only limited detailed and contextual information. Interactive 3D printed models (I3Ms) that provide audio labels and/or a conversational agent interface potentially overcome this limitation. We conducted a Wizard-of-Oz exploratory study to uncover the multi-modal interaction techniques that BLV people would like to use when exploring I3Ms, and investigated their attitudes towards different levels of model agency. These findings informed the creation of an I3M prototype of the solar system. A second user study with this model revealed a hierarchy of interaction, with BLV users preferring tactile exploration, followed by touch gestures to trigger audio labels, and then natural language to fill in knowledge gaps and confirm understanding.Comment: Paper presented at ACM CHI 2020: Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, New York, April 2020; Replacement: typos correcte