Abstract
This paper presents the design and initial evaluation of a Braille virtual keyboard which allows text input on touchscreen devices such as smartphones and tablets. The virtual keyboard, called LêBraille, is a metaphor of the Braille writing system that uses audio and vibration feedbacks to promote accessibility for people with visual disabilities. We integrated this keyboard into two mobile applications and implemented an initial usability evaluation with nine people with visual disabilities. The evaluation comprised activities including a comparison of text input in three types of keyboards (physical keyboard, alpha numeric virtual keyboard, and LêBraille). Initial results indicates that writing activities can be as fast as a virtual keyboard depending on the Braille expertise of the user and the degree of blindness, however, the writing pace with a virtual keyboard is lower than the writing pace with a physical keyboard.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Oliveira, J., Guerreiro, T., Nicolau, H., Jorge, J., Gonçalves, D.: BrailleType: Unleashing Braille over Touch Screen Mobile Phones. In: Campos, P., Graham, N., Jorge, J., Nunes, N., Palanque, P., Winckler, M. (eds.) INTERACT 2011, Part I. LNCS, vol. 6946, pp. 100–107. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)
Façanha, A.R., Viana, W., Pequeno, M.C.: Estudo de interfaces acessíveis para usuários com deficiência visual em dispositivos móveis touch screen. In: XVI Congreso Internacional de Informática Educativa (TISE 2011), Santiago Chile (2011)
Kane, S.K., Wobbrock, J.O., Ladner, R.E.: Usable gestures for blind people: understanding preference and performance. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2011), pp. 413–422. ACM, New York (2011)
Kane, S.K., et al.: Access overlays: improving non-visual access to large touch screens for blind users. In: Proc. of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2011), pp. 273–282. ACM, New York (2011)
WCAG. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. (2008), http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/
Lunt, P., Livingstone, S.: Rethinking the focus group in media and communications research. Journal of Communication 46(2), 79–98 (1996)
Levy, P.S., Lemeshow, S.: Sampling of Populations: Methods and Applications, 4th edn. Wiley Series in Survey Methodology (2008)
Sánchez, J., Aguayo, F.: Mobile Messenger for the Blind. In: Stephanidis, C., Pieper, M. (eds.) ERCIM Ws UI4ALL 2006. LNCS, vol. 4397, pp. 369–385. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Tinwala, H., MacKenzie, I.S.: Eyes-free text entry on a touchscreen phone. In: Proceedings of the IEEE Toronto International Conference – Science and Technology for Humanity – TIC-STH 2009, pp. 83–89. IEEE, New York (2009)
Bonner, M.N., Brudvik, J.T., Abowd, G.D., Edwards, W.K.: No-look notes: accessible eyes-free multi-touch text entry. In: Floréen, P., Krüger, A., Spasojevic, M. (eds.) Pervasive 2010. LNCS, vol. 6030, pp. 409–426. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Guerreiro, T., Lagoá, P., Nicolau, H., Gonçalves, D., Jorge, J.A.: From Tapping to Touching: Making Touch Screens Accessible to Blind Users. IEEE MultiMedia 15(4), 48–50 (2008)
Lucas, D., Nicolau, H., Guerreiro, T., Jorge, J.A.: NavTilt: Interface Gestual para Cegos. In: Proceedings of the 4th National Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (Interacção 2010), Aveiro, Portugal (2010)
Millard, D., Howard, Y., Gilbert, L., Wills, G.: Co-design and Codeployment Methodologies for Innovative m-Learning Systems. In: Multiplatform E-Learning Systems and Technologies: Mobile Devices for Ubiquitous ICT-Based Education. IGI Global (2009)
Frey, B., Southern, C., Romero, M.: Brailletouch: Mobile Texting for the Visually Impaired. In: Stephanidis, C. (ed.) Universal Access in HCI, Part III, HCII 2011. LNCS, vol. 6767, pp. 19–25. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)
Mascetti, S., Bernareggi, C., Belotti, M.: TypeInBraille: a braille-based typing application for touchscreen devices. In: The Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2011), pp. 295–296. ACM, New York (2011)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Façanha, A.R., Viana, W., Pequeno, M.C., de Borba Campos, M., Sánchez, J. (2014). Touchscreen Mobile Phones Virtual Keyboarding for People with Visual Disabilities. In: Kurosu, M. (eds) Human-Computer Interaction. Applications and Services. HCI 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8512. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07227-2_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07227-2_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-07226-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-07227-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)