Feeling what you hear: tactile feedback for navigation of audio graphs

Access to digitally stored numerical data is currently very limited for sight impaired people. Graphs and visualizations are often used to analyze relationships between numerical data, but the current methods of accessing them are highly visually mediated. Representing data using audio feedback is a common method of making data more accessible, but methods of navigating and accessing the data are often serial in nature and laborious. Tactile or haptic displays could be used to provide additional feedback to support a point-and-click type interaction for the visually impaired. A requirements capture conducted with sight impaired computer users produced a review of current accessibility technologies, and guidelines were extracted for using tactile feedback to aid navigation. The results of a qualitative evaluation with a prototype interface are also presented. Providing an absolute position input device and tactile feedback allowed the users to explore the graph using tactile and proprioceptive cues in a manner analogous to point-and-click techniques

Multimodal virtual reality versus printed medium in visualization for blind people

In this paper, we describe a study comparing the strengths of a multimodal Virtual Reality (VR) interface against traditional tactile diagrams in conveying information to visually impaired and blind people. The multimodal VR interface consists of a force feedback device (SensAble PHANTOM), synthesized speech and non-speech audio. Potential advantages of the VR technology are well known however its real usability in comparison with the conventional paper-based medium is seldom investigated. We have addressed this issue in our evaluation. The experimental results show benefits from using the multimodal approach in terms of more accurate information about the graphs obtained by users

Gráficos estadísticos accesibles para personas con baja visión y visión cromática deficiente

Statistical charts and graphs play a primordial role in different areas of our life, such as information, education, communication or research, among others. However, authors and content publishers do not always follow the accessibility criteria in the design and creation of this type of content. Considering these two premises, this work includes the four main approaches in which the scientific literature has focused so far to improve the accessibility of statistical charts and graphs: text alternatives, sonification, tactile alternatives and multimodal alternatives, with the purpose of evaluating their suitability for people with low vision and color blindness. Finally, some solutions are suggested that seem technologically viable and that start from the use of JavaScript libraries for the creation of interactive charts, in combination with other standards such as WAI-ARIA to tag and provide information about the content and the characteristics of the charts and the use of patterns to fill areas as a strategy to differentiate visual variables

Looking Good, Feeling Good – Tac Map: a navigation system for the blind

This paper describes the research and development of a navigation system for the blind that provides a tactile and visual language that can be understood by both sighted and blind users. It describes key work and issues in the development of graphical symbols and in particular the pioneering work of Neurath‟s ISOTYPES, as well as more specific communication systems for blind people. The paper focuses on the development of "TacMap‟, a navigation system for the blind. User engagement has been fundamental in the research and the paper discusses the methodology, the research findings and product‟s potential future opportunities and impact

Web-based multimodal graphs for visually impaired people

This paper describes the development and evaluation of Web-based multimodal graphs designed for visually impaired and blind people. The information in the graphs is conveyed to visually impaired people through haptic and audio channels. The motivation of this work is to address problems faced by visually impaired people in accessing graphical information on the Internet, particularly the common types of graphs for data visualization. In our work, line graphs, bar charts and pie charts are accessible through a force feedback device, the Logitech WingMan Force Feedback Mouse. Pre-recorded sound files are used to represent graph contents to users. In order to test the usability of the developed Web graphs, an evaluation was conducted with bar charts as the experimental platform. The results showed that the participants could successfully use the haptic and audio features to extract information from the Web graphs

Atlas.txt : Exploring Lingusitic Grounding Techniques for Communicating Spatial Information to Blind Users

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