Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Mobile device accessibility for the visually impaired: problems mapping and recommendations

  • Long Paper
  • Published:
Universal Access in the Information Society Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Mobile devices can be an important ally that improves the quality of life of visually impaired people by permitting greater independence in the execution of certain tasks and facilitating social inclusion. This work presents a systematic review that maps out the accessibility issues that visually impaired people experience when they interact with mobile devices. We identified 68 accessibility problems that were mapped into seven problem groups. This mapping was used to propose 28 recommendations to improve the accessibility of mobile devices. This analysis identified the persistence of certain accessibility problems such as the difficulty of typing on keyboards but also finds the emergence of new challenge such as the failure to recognize gesture-based interactions that demand more extensive training for users. This work is important because it provides an overview of accessibility problems that people with visual disabilities experience with mobile devices and proposes a number of accessibility recommendations to guide future studies. The main contribution of this paper is the mapping of accessibility problems into categories and the development of recommendations for identified problems.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The seven categories were enough to map all the problems found; that is, none was left out, and none was classified into two different categories.

References

  1. Dorigo, M.L., Harriehausen-Mühlbauer, B., Stengel, I., Haskell-Dowland, P.S.: Nonvisual presentation and navigation within the structure of digital text-documents on mobile devices. In: Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Applications and Services for Quality of Life, pp. 311–320. Springer, Las Vegas, USA (2013)

  2. Façanha, A.R., Viana, W., Pequeno, M.C., Campos, M. de B., Sánchez, J.: Touchscreen mobile phones virtual keyboarding for people with visual disabilities. In: Human-Computer Interaction. Applications and Services, pp. 134–145. Springer, Heraklion, Greece (2014)

  3. Kulyukin, V., Zaman, T., Andhavarapu, A., Kutiyanawala, A.: Eyesight sharing in blind grocery shopping: remote P2P caregiving through cloud computing. In: Computers Helping People with Special Needs, pp. 75–82. Springer, Linz, Austria (2012)

  4. Legge, G.E., Beckmann, P.J., Tjan, B.S., Havey, G., Kramer, K., Rolkosky, D., Gage, R., Chen, M., Puchakayala, S., Rangarajan, A.: Indoor navigation by people with visual impairment using a digital sign system. PLoS ONE 8, e76783 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Ganz, A., Schafer, J.M., Tao, Y., Wilson, C., Robertson, M.: PERCEPT-II: Smartphone based indoor navigation system for the blind. In: Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2014 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE, pp. 3662–3665. IEEE, Chicago, USA (2014)

  6. Fusco, G., Shen, H., Coughlan, J.M.: Self-localization at street intersections. In: 2014 Canadian Conference on Computer and Robot Vision (CRV), pp. 40–47. IEEE, Montreal, Canada (2014)

  7. Pitera, A., Bober, D., Kesik, J.: Image edges locator dedicated to visually impaired people—an experimental application for mobile devices. In: 2015 IEEE 8th International Conference on Intelligent Data Acquisition and Advanced Computing Systems: Technology and Applications (IDAACS), pp. 660–665. IEEE, Warsaw, Poland (2015)

  8. Bagwan, S.M.R., Sankpal, L.J.: VisualPal: A mobile app for object recognition for the visually impaired. In: 2015 International Conference on Computer, Communication and Control (IC4), pp. 1–6. IEEE, Indore, India (2015)

  9. Radványi, M., Solymár, Z., Stubendek, A., Karacs, K.: Mobile banknote recognition: Topological models in scene understanding. In: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Applied Sciences in Biomedical and Communication Technologies, pp. 185:1–185:5. ACM, Barcelona, Spain (2011)

  10. Sousa e Silva, J., Pereira, A., Gonçalves, R., Gomes, S.: State of the art of accessible development for smart devices: from a disable and not impaired point of view. In: 2014 9th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), pp. 1–5. IEEE, Barcelona, Spain (2014)

  11. Crossland, M.D., S. Silva, R., Macedo, A.F.: Smartphone, tablet computer and e-reader use by people with vision impairment. Ophthalmic Physiol. Opt. 34, 552–557 (2014)

  12. Miura, T., Matsuzaka, H., Sakajiri, M., Ono, T.: Usages and demands to touchscreen interface: a questionnaire survey in Japanese visually impaired people. In: 2012 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC), pp. 2933–2938. IEEE, Seoul, Korea (2012)

  13. Leporini, B., Buzzi, M.C., Buzzi, M.: Interacting with mobile devices via VoiceOver: usability and accessibility issues. In: Proceedings of the 24th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference, pp. 339–348. ACM, Melbourne, Australia (2012)

  14. Strumillo, P., Skulimowski, P., Polanczyk, M.: Programming Symbian smartphones for the blind and visually impaired. In: Kącki, E., Rudnicki, M., Stempczyńska, J. (eds.) Computers in Medical Activity, Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing, pp. 129–136. Springer, Lodz, Poland (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Thinyane, H., Thinyane, M.: ICANSEE: A SIM based application for digital inclusion of the visually impaired community. In: Innovations for Digital Inclusions, 2009. K-IDI 2009. ITU-T Kaleidoscope, pp. 1–6. IEEE, Mar del Plata, Argentina (2009)

  16. Chakraborty, T., Samanta, D.: BlindGuide: An audio based eyes-free caller guide for people with visual impairment. In: 2012 4th International Conference on Intelligent Human Computer Interaction (IHCI), pp. 1–6. IEEE, Kharagpur, India (2012)

  17. El-Glaly, Y.N., Quek, F., Smith-Jackson, T., Dhillon, G.: Touch-screens are not tangible: fusing tangible interaction with touch glass in readers for the blind. In: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, pp. 245–253. ACM, Barcelona, Spain (2013)

  18. Oh, U., Kane, S.K., Findlater, L.: Follow that sound: using sonification and corrective verbal feedback to teach touchscreen gestures. In: Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, p. 13:1–13:8. ACM, Bellevue, USA (2013)

  19. Hakobyan, L., Lumsden, J., O’Sullivan, D., Bartlett, H.: Mobile assistive technologies for the visually impaired. Surv. Ophthalmol. 58, 513–528 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Buzzi, M.C., Buzzi, M., Leporini, B., Martusciello, L.: Making visual maps accessible to the blind. In: Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Users Diversity. pp. 271–280. Springer, Orlando, USA (2011)

  21. Rodriguez-Sanchez, M., Moreno-Alvarez, M., Martin, E., Borromeo, S., Hernandez-Tamames, J.: Accessible smartphones for blind users: a case study for a wayfinding system. Expert Syst. Appl. 41, 7210–7222 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Kane, S.K., Jayant, C., Wobbrock, J.O., Ladner, R.E.: Freedom to roam: a study of mobile device adoption and accessibility for people with visual and motor disabilities. In: Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, pp. 115–122. ACM, Pittsburgh, USA (2009)

  23. Guerreiro, T., Nicolau, H., Jorge, J., Gonçalves, D.: NavTap: a long term study with excluded blind users. In: Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, pp. 99–106. ACM, Pittsburgh, USA (2009)

  24. Mi, N., Cavuoto, L.A., Benson, K., Smith-Jackson, T., Nussbaum, M.A.: A heuristic checklist for an accessible smartphone interface design. Univers. Access Inf. Soc. 13, 351–365 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Bonner, M.N., Brudvik, J.T., Abowd, G.D., Edwards, W.K.: No-look notes: accessible eyes-free multi-touch text entry. In: Pervasive Computing, pp. 409–426. Springer, Helsinki, Finland (2010)

  26. 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, pp. 413–422. ACM, Vancouver, Canada (2011)

  27. Costante, G., Porzi, L., Lanz, O., Valigi, P., Ricci, E.: Personalizing a smartwatch-based gesture interface with transfer learning. In: 2014 Proceedings of the 22nd European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO), pp. 2530–2534. IEEE, Lisbon, Portugal (2014)

  28. Dim, N.K., Ren, X.: Designing motion gesture interfaces in mobile phones for blind people. J. Comput. Sci. Technol. 29, 812–824 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Biolchini, J., Gomes, P., Cruz, A., Travassos, G.: Systematic Review in Software Engineering. System Engineering and Computer Science Department COPPE/UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  30. Kitchenham, B., Brereton, O.P., Budgen, D., Turner, M., Bailey, J., Linkman, S.: Systematic literature reviews in software engineering—a systematic literature review. Inf. Softw. Technol. 51, 7–15 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Boland, A., Cherry, G., Dickson, R. (eds.): Doing a Systematic Review. Sage, London (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Choi, Y., Hong, K.-H.: User requirements for camera-based mobile applications on touch screen devices for blind people. In: Computers Helping People with Special Needs, pp. 48–51. Springer, Linz, Austria (2012)

  33. Markus, N., Malik, S., Juhasz, Z., Arató, A.: Accessibility for the blind on an open-source mobile platform: Mobile Slate Talker (MOST) for Android. In: Computers Helping People with Special Needs, pp. 599–606. Springer, Linz, Austria (2012)

  34. McGookin, D., Brewster, S., Jiang, W.: Investigating touchscreen accessibility for people with visual impairments. In: Proceedings of the 5th Nordic Conference on Human-computer Interaction: Building Bridges, pp. 298–307. ACM, Lund, Sweden (2008)

  35. Rodrigues, A., Montague, K., Nicolau, H., Guerreiro, T.: Getting smartphones to TalkBack: Understanding the smartphone adoption process of blind users. In: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility. ACM, Lisbon, Portugal (2015)

  36. Chakraborty, T., Samanta, D.: Exploring an effective interaction mode for blind mobile users in India. In: Proceedings of the 11th Asia Pacific Conference on Computer Human Interaction, pp. 371–378. ACM, Bangalore, India (2013)

  37. Misra, S., Banubakode, S.M., Dhawale, C.A.: Novel user interface for text entry on touch screen mobile device for visually impaired users. In: 2014 Global Summit on Computer & Information Technology (GSCIT), pp. 1–5. IEEE, Sousse, Tunisia (2014)

  38. Ruamviboonsuk, V., Azenkot, S., Ladner, R.E.: Tapulator: A non-visual calculator using natural prefix-free codes. In: Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, pp. 221–222. ACM, Boulder, USA (2012)

  39. Nicolau, H., Montague, K., Rodrigues, A., Guerreiro, T., Hanson, V.: Typing performance of blind users: an analysis of touch behaviors, learning effect, and in situ usage. In: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility. ACM, Lisbon, Portugal (2015)

  40. Guerreiro, J., Rodrigues, A., Montague, K., Guerreiro, T.J.V., Nicolau, H., Gonçalves, D.: Tablets get physical: non-visual text entry on tablet devices. In: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, Seoul, Republic of Korea (2015)

  41. Watanabe, T., Yamaguchi, T., Minatani, K.: Advantages and drawbacks of smartphones and tablets for visually impaired people—analysis of ICT user survey results. IEICE Trans. Inf. Syst. E98–D, 922–929 (2015)

  42. Chiti, S., Leporini, B.: Accessibility of Android-based mobile devices: A prototype to investigate interaction with blind users. In: Computers Helping People with Special Needs, pp. 607–614. Springer, Linz, Austria (2012)

  43. Park, K., Goh, T., So, H.-J.: Toward accessible mobile application design: developing mobile application accessibility guidelines for people with visual impairment. In: Proceedings of HCI Korea, pp. 31–38. Hanbit, Seoul, Republic of Korea (2014)

  44. Kane, S.K., Bigham, J.P., Wobbrock, J.O.: Slide rule: making mobile touch screens accessible to blind people using multi-touch interaction techniques. In: Proceedings of the 10th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility, pp. 73–80. ACM, Halifax, Canada (2008)

  45. Luthra, V., Ghosh, S.: Understanding, evaluating and analyzing touch screen gestures for visually impaired users in mobile environment. In: Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Access to Interaction, pp. 25–36. Springer, Los Angeles, USA (2015)

  46. Li, F.C.Y., Dearman, D., Truong, K.N.: Leveraging proprioception to make mobile phones more accessible to users with visual impairments. In: Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, pp. 187–194. ACM, Orlando, USA (2010)

  47. Croxford, S., Rundle, C.: Blind people and apps on mobile phones and tablets—challenges and possibilities. In: Anderson, M. (ed.) Contemporary Ergonomics and Human Factors 2013. p. 343. Taylor, Cambridge (2013)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  48. Pous, M., Serra-Vallmitjana, C., Gimenez, R., Torrent-Moreno, M., Boix, D.: Enhancing accessibility: Mobile to ATM case study. In: 2012 IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC), pp. 404–408. IEEE, Las Vegas, USA (2012)

  49. Buzzi, M.C., Buzzi, M., Leporini, B., Paratore, M.T.: Vibro-tactile enrichment improves blind user interaction with mobile touchscreens. In: Kotzé, P., Marsden, G., Lindgaard, G., Wesson, J., Winckler, M. (eds.) Human-Computer Interaction—INTERACT 2013, pp. 641–648. Springer, Cape Town, South Africa (2013)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  50. Silva, A.F.A. da, Silva, A.B.M. da, Pontes, V.O., Watanabe, E.N., Ito, M., Santana, V.F. de: Estudo sobre o uso de tablets como ferramenta de suporte à interação de pessoas cegas com painéis digitais. In: Proceedings of the 12th Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 268–271. Brazilian Computer Society, Manaus, Brazil (2013)

  51. Costa, L.C.P., Almeida, N.S., Correa, A.G.D., Lopes, R.D., Zuffo, M.K.: Accessible display design to control home area networks. IEEE Trans. Consum. Electron. 59, 422–427 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Zhong, Y., Raman, T.V., Burkhardt, C., Biadsy, F., Bigham, J.P.: JustSpeak: enabling universal voice control on Android. In: Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference, p. 36:1–36:4. ACM, Seoul, Korea (2014)

  53. Carroll, D., Chakraborty, S., Lazar, J.: Designing accessible visualizations: the case of designing a weather map for blind users. In: Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Design Methods, Tools, and Interaction Techniques for eInclusion, pp. 436–445. Springer, Las Vegas, USA (2013)

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors relied on funding from the Programme Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (“Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior”—CAPES). The authors would like to thank André Luiz Brandão for all helpful discussions and comments. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Santo André, Brazil

    Rafael Jeferson Pezzuto Damaceno, Juliana Cristina Braga & Jesús Pascual Mena-Chalco

Authors
  1. Rafael Jeferson Pezzuto Damaceno
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Juliana Cristina Braga
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jesús Pascual Mena-Chalco
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rafael Jeferson Pezzuto Damaceno.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Damaceno, R.J.P., Braga, J.C. & Mena-Chalco, J.P. Mobile device accessibility for the visually impaired: problems mapping and recommendations. Univ Access Inf Soc 17, 421–435 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-017-0540-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-017-0540-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation