A complete and thorough understanding by patients of their prescriptions is one of the most criti... more A complete and thorough understanding by patients of their prescriptions is one of the most critical components of a successful treatment journey. Being unfamiliar with the intricacies of prescribed medication can cause serious health risks due to not adhering to prescription instructions or noting potential drug interactions, which can lead to life-threatening injuries. Pharmacists face communication barriers (including non-English speaking patients), lack of time, lack of knowledge, workload, and frequent interruption when dispensing medicines often preventing them from providing the necessary guidance to their patients. To minimize this risk, an NFC-Guidable polypharmacy system was developed integrating Near Field Technology (NFC) into prescription packages. The intention being, to automate prescription identification for elderly patients in hospitals and primary health care (PHC) centers where Arabic is their native language and patients have five or more prescriptions at a time. The system provides prescription information such as name, expiration date based on the Islamic calendar, appropriate dosage, the correct time for a dose, contraindication, and other relevant instructions in Arabic. The objectives of the system are to improve patient safety and enhance the quality of prescription dispensing for elderly and non-English speaking patients. An evaluation study with polypharmacy elderly patients and pharmacists is conducted to understand the perception and acceptance of the system by both groups. The strengths and weaknesses of the system as well as suggestions for improvement from participants were also gathered. The study results indicate that the system helps patients to avoid misuse of sensitive medication and authenticates their prescribed prescription drugs before taking them. The system also assists pharmacists in improving the efficiency of dispensing medication and streamline processes. Overall, the application was well received by both patients and pharmacists. Thus, NFC technology should be integrated into the healthcare sector to overcome language barriers, the lack of specialized medication labels for illiterate or patients with sight constraints as well as unreasonable expectations placed on pharmacists.
International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications
There is an abundance of technology targeting children in terms of education, entertainment, and ... more There is an abundance of technology targeting children in terms of education, entertainment, and health; however, little research has been conducted on the usability of Near Field Communication (NFC) to create an interactive, digital environment for children easily accessible on a mobile device. NFC technology is a component of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and is affordable, intuitive, and accessible. The following research evaluates existing NFC applications for children in terms of their ease of use, appropriateness, and areas in need of improvement. Recommendations are provided in visual design, audio enhancements, reward system, and privacy and security concerns. It is concluded that adopting NFC technology in all facets of life will positively benefit the most vulnerable population, children, but first progress toward a user-centered design for this group is required.
CAPTCHAs are widely used by web applications for the purpose of security and privacy. However, tr... more CAPTCHAs are widely used by web applications for the purpose of security and privacy. However, traditional text-based CAPTCHAs are not suitable for sighted users much less users with visual impairments. To address the issue, this paper proposes a new mechanism for CAPTCHA called HearAct, which is a real-time audio-based CAPTCHA that enables easy access for users with visual impairments. The user listens to the sound of something (the "sound-maker"), and he/she must identify what the sound-maker is. After that, HearAct identifies a word and requires the user to analyze a word and determine whether it has the stated letter or not. If the word has the letter, the user must tap and if not, they swipe. This paper presents our HearAct pilot study conducted with thirteen blind users. The preliminary user study results suggest the new form of CAPTCHA has a lot of potential for both blind and visual users. The results also show that the HearAct CAPTCHA can be answered in a shorter time than the text-based CAPTCHAs because HearAct allows users to solve the CAPTCHA using gestures instead of typing. Thus, participants preferred HearAct over audio-based CAPTCHAs. The results of the study also show that the success rate of solving the HearAct CAPTCHA is 82.05% and 43.58% for audio CAPTCHA. A significant usability differences between the System Usability score for HearAct CAPTCHA method was 88.07 compared to audio CAPTCHA was 52.11%. Using gestures to solve the CAPTCHA challenge is the most preferable feature in the HearAct solution. To increase the security of HearAct, it is necessary to increase the number of sounds in the CAPTCHA. There is also a need to improve the CAPTCHA solution to cover wide range of users by adding corresponding image with each sound to meet deaf users' needs; they then need to identify the spelling of the sound maker's word.
CAPTCHAs are widely used by web applications for the purpose of security and privacy. However, tr... more CAPTCHAs are widely used by web applications for the purpose of security and privacy. However, traditional text-based CAPTCHAs are not suitable for sighted users much less users with visual impairments. To address the issue, this paper proposes a new mechanism for CAPTCHA called HearAct, which is a real-time audio-based CAPTCHA that enables easy access for users with visual impairments. The user listens to the sound of something (the "sound-maker"), and he/she must identify what the sound-maker is. After that, HearAct identifies a word and requires the user to analyze a word and determine whether it has the stated letter or not. If the word has the letter, the user must tap and if not, they swipe. This paper presents our HearAct pilot study conducted with thirteen blind users. The preliminary user study results suggest the new form of CAPTCHA has a lot of potential for both blind and visual users. The results also show that the HearAct CAPTCHA can be answered in a shorter time than the text-based CAPTCHAs because HearAct allows users to solve the CAPTCHA using gestures instead of typing. Thus, participants preferred HearAct over audio-based CAPTCHAs. The results of the study also show that the success rate of solving the HearAct CAPTCHA is 82.05% and 43.58% for audio CAPTCHA. A significant usability differences between the System Usability score for HearAct CAPTCHA method was 88.07 compared to audio CAPTCHA was 52.11%. Using gestures to solve the CAPTCHA challenge is the most preferable feature in the HearAct solution. To increase the security of HearAct, it is necessary to increase the number of sounds in the CAPTCHA. There is also a need to improve the CAPTCHA solution to cover wide range of users by adding corresponding image with each sound to meet deaf users' needs; they then need to identify the spelling of the sound maker's word.
Touchscreen calculators require a user to visually locate a button on the screen. This poses a ch... more Touchscreen calculators require a user to visually locate a button on the screen. This poses a challenge for individuals with limited or no vision. To overcome this challenge, prior to use these individuals must invest additional time and energy into memorizing the calculator layout. There is currently no application that simplifies the calculator user-interface for individuals with limited or no vision. To fill this void, this paper proposes BrailleTap. BrailleTap is a button-free calculator application for touchscreen devices that utilizes tap gestures to operate. Using finger tap, the user can input a number in braille and the application will compute the braille code to its corresponding numerical value. Alternatively, using a swipe gesture, the user will be orally prompted to select the desired arithmetic operations. This paper presents our pilot study of BrailleTap that was conducted with two blind users. Results indicate that BrailleTap is faster and more accessible to blind users than the traditional touchscreen calculator. However, in order to increase the efficiency of BrailleTap further development of the underlying algorithm is required.
Touchscreen technology has brought about significant improvements for both normal sighted and vis... more Touchscreen technology has brought about significant improvements for both normal sighted and visually impaired people. Visually impaired people tend to use touchscreen devices because these devices support a screen reader function, providing a cheaper, smaller alternative to screen reader machines. However, most of the available touchscreen keyboards are still largely inaccessible to blind and visually impaired people because they require the user to find an object location on a touchscreen in order to interact with an application. In this paper, we describe SingleTapBraille, a novel nonvisual text input approach for touchscreen devices. With SingleTapBraille, a user enters characters including text, numbers, and punctuations by tapping anywhere on the screen with one finger or a thumb several times based on braille patterns. This paper presents our initial keyboard design to enter Grade 1 and our explorative evaluation of SingleTapBraille conducted with braille instructors and visually impaired users. It also presents the implementation of Grade 2 and an initial evaluation of the improved SingleTapBraille keyboard with a blind user.
Blind people use smartphone devices to perform many daily activities like mobile banking, social ... more Blind people use smartphone devices to perform many daily activities like mobile banking, social media, shopping, health care, etc. While smartphone devices are essential tools for many people who are blind and visually impaired, these devices pose significant security and privacy risks for them. One of the security-related challenges that blind users face is authenticating their identity to access web apps. Most password systems on smartphone devices do not meet the requirements of people with no or low vision, inviting aural and video observation attacks due to the limitations of screen readers, input methods, and user interfaces on web applications. Thus, this study proposes a new web authentication system for blind and visually impaired people, and demonstrates its accessibility, usability and security against observation attacks. This paper explains the design of the proposed authentication technique and reports a study with people living with visual impairments that demonstrates the method's resilience to observation attacks. To login, a user enters six digits of selected Braille characters informed by haptic feedback (vibration). The BraillePassword provides no aural or visual feedback, minimizing the risk of observation or shoulder attack without any extra fees for special hardware. A user study conducted with ten blind participants showed that BraillePassword is a more secure and accessible authentication method for touchscreens than the traditional method, where passwords are entered using a QWERTY keyboard. All participants were able to enter their credentials using the BraillePassword and 82.5% successfully logged into their web application using this method over a week. The researcher was able to guess only 12.5% of passwords entered into BraillePassword after conducting a video based attack, indicating that the BraillePassword achieves better resistance to audio and video attacks than the traditional authentication method while maintaining the accessibility of authentication user interface. We also gathered preliminary evidence that six digits in BraillePassword has a stronger entropy than six digits used in the traditional authentication system.
This paper provides a comparative evaluation study with totally blind participants to evaluate th... more This paper provides a comparative evaluation study with totally blind participants to evaluate their performance using two braille input methods. BrailleEnter, a gesture based input method, is compared to the Swift Braille keyboard, which requires finding the location of six buttons representing braille dots. Six blind participants assessed the performance of both keyboards on Android platforms. There were significant differences between both braille keyboards in term of typing speed, error rate and usability. We found that BrailleEnter was more accurate than the Swift Braille keyboard. BrailleEnter also received higher ratings for usability based on Lewis questionnaire on input methods. At the same time, this study found that the speed of BrailleEnter was significantly slower than the Swift Braille keyboard since it required users to interact six times with the screen to insert just one character. Participants were able to quickly understand the BrailleEnter and Swift Braille input methods. Given their knowledge of Braille patterns, they were also quick to learn how to type on their touchscreen devices using the keyboards. The study indicates both keyboards strengths and weaknesses, and highlights a set of recommendations for developing a more accessible keyboard for blind people. In doing so, we consider possible design improvements for the future development of accessible keyboards for blind users.
This paper provides an evaluation of the SingleTapBraille keyboard, designed to assist people wit... more This paper provides an evaluation of the SingleTapBraille keyboard, designed to assist people with no or low vision in using touchscreen smartphones. This application allows blind users to input characters based on braille patterns. To assess SingleTapBraille, this study compares its performance with that of the commonly used QWERTY keyboard. We conducted an evaluation study with 7 blind participants to examine the performance of both keyboards on Android platforms. Overall, participants were able to quickly adjust to SingleTapBraille and type on touchscreen devices using their knowledge of Braille patterns within fifteen to twenty minutes of introduction to the system. The SingleTapBraille keyboard was better than the QWERTY keyboard in terms of both speed and accuracy, indicating that SingleTapBraille represents an improvement over existing alternatives in making touchscreen keyboards more accessible for blind users. Based on the evaluation results and the feedback of our participants, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of previous keyboards that have been used by participants, as well as those of SingleTapBraille. In doing so, we consider possible design improvements for the future development of accessible keyboards for blind users.
Text entry methods on touchscreen devices are often developed without taking into account the nee... more Text entry methods on touchscreen devices are often developed without taking into account the needs of people with no or low vision. Despite this, there has been significant improvement in touchscreen accessibility for blind people; for example, integrating the screen reader in smartphone devices. The QWERTY keyboard with VoiceOver and many other proposed touchscreen keyboards are in many ways inaccessible to blind people because they primarily require finding keys' locations on a touchscreen and both hands to interact with keyboard interfaces. In order to enable blind people to easily perform text entry, this research has the objective of developing a tool that overcomes the limitations of existing keyboards. In this paper, we describe BrailleEnter, a text input method to support nonvisual interaction on touchscreen devices. BrailleEnter allows users to type letters, numbers, and punctuation by pressing the screen to represent raised Braille dots and briefly tapping to represent unraised dots anywhere on a touchscreen using one finger, based on braille coding. This paper presents our keyboard design rationale and our preliminary evaluation of BrailleEnter, which was conducted with two blind users. The study shows that the BrailleEnter keyboard has the potential to make smartphone devices fully accessible for blind people. The study also highlights that using only one finger to interact with a screen is the most accessible method for blind users.
Deaf people have difficulty communicating with the hearing people around them, but little researc... more Deaf people have difficulty communicating with the hearing people around them, but little research has addressed how new technology may help address this issue. The current research objectives were to (1) survey research on communication barriers encountered by deaf people; (2) survey the available communication applications (apps) and features designed for deaf people; (3) recommend the best existing communication apps for Deaf people; and, (4) identify the best designs and features of these apps for developers. A total of 55 communication apps were examined, but only six were found to be designed specifically as communication apps for deaf people. The survey outlines useful features of available communication apps for this population, examines the needs and preferences of the users, and compares these with existing features. We see that there is a serious need to develop more communication apps that meet the needs of deaf people.
Touchscreen technology has brought about significant improvements for both normal sighted and vis... more Touchscreen technology has brought about significant improvements for both normal sighted and visually impaired people. Visually impaired people tend to use touchscreen devices because these devices support a screen reader function, providing a cheaper, smaller alternative to screen reader machines. However, most of the available touchscreen keyboards are still largely inaccessible to blind and visually impaired people because they require the user to find an object location on a touchscreen in order to interact with an application. In this paper, we describe SingleTapBraille, a novel nonvisual text input approach for touchscreen devices. With SingleTapBraille, a user enters characters including text, numbers, and punctuation by tapping anywhere on the screen with one finger or a thumb several times based on braille patterns. This paper presents our initial keyboard design and our explorative evaluation of SingleTapBraille conducted with braille instructors and visually impaired users.
VirtualEyez is a low-cost mobile system that uses NFC tags (NTAG 203 tags) to help visually impai... more VirtualEyez is a low-cost mobile system that uses NFC tags (NTAG 203 tags) to help visually impaired people shop in a grocery store. While the main purpose of this system is to provide visually impaired people with greater independence when grocery shopping, anyone can use VirtualEyez to navigate a store and obtain product information. The prototype was designed to check product availability, generate optimal directions to products, and provide product information. In this paper, we describe the VirtualEyez system and discuss the results from a preliminary study where participants (visually impaired, partially impaired, and sighted) tried the prototype in a mock grocery store.
A complete and thorough understanding by patients of their prescriptions is one of the most criti... more A complete and thorough understanding by patients of their prescriptions is one of the most critical components of a successful treatment journey. Being unfamiliar with the intricacies of prescribed medication can cause serious health risks due to not adhering to prescription instructions or noting potential drug interactions, which can lead to life-threatening injuries. Pharmacists face communication barriers (including non-English speaking patients), lack of time, lack of knowledge, workload, and frequent interruption when dispensing medicines often preventing them from providing the necessary guidance to their patients. To minimize this risk, an NFC-Guidable polypharmacy system was developed integrating Near Field Technology (NFC) into prescription packages. The intention being, to automate prescription identification for elderly patients in hospitals and primary health care (PHC) centers where Arabic is their native language and patients have five or more prescriptions at a time. The system provides prescription information such as name, expiration date based on the Islamic calendar, appropriate dosage, the correct time for a dose, contraindication, and other relevant instructions in Arabic. The objectives of the system are to improve patient safety and enhance the quality of prescription dispensing for elderly and non-English speaking patients. An evaluation study with polypharmacy elderly patients and pharmacists is conducted to understand the perception and acceptance of the system by both groups. The strengths and weaknesses of the system as well as suggestions for improvement from participants were also gathered. The study results indicate that the system helps patients to avoid misuse of sensitive medication and authenticates their prescribed prescription drugs before taking them. The system also assists pharmacists in improving the efficiency of dispensing medication and streamline processes. Overall, the application was well received by both patients and pharmacists. Thus, NFC technology should be integrated into the healthcare sector to overcome language barriers, the lack of specialized medication labels for illiterate or patients with sight constraints as well as unreasonable expectations placed on pharmacists.
International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications
There is an abundance of technology targeting children in terms of education, entertainment, and ... more There is an abundance of technology targeting children in terms of education, entertainment, and health; however, little research has been conducted on the usability of Near Field Communication (NFC) to create an interactive, digital environment for children easily accessible on a mobile device. NFC technology is a component of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and is affordable, intuitive, and accessible. The following research evaluates existing NFC applications for children in terms of their ease of use, appropriateness, and areas in need of improvement. Recommendations are provided in visual design, audio enhancements, reward system, and privacy and security concerns. It is concluded that adopting NFC technology in all facets of life will positively benefit the most vulnerable population, children, but first progress toward a user-centered design for this group is required.
CAPTCHAs are widely used by web applications for the purpose of security and privacy. However, tr... more CAPTCHAs are widely used by web applications for the purpose of security and privacy. However, traditional text-based CAPTCHAs are not suitable for sighted users much less users with visual impairments. To address the issue, this paper proposes a new mechanism for CAPTCHA called HearAct, which is a real-time audio-based CAPTCHA that enables easy access for users with visual impairments. The user listens to the sound of something (the "sound-maker"), and he/she must identify what the sound-maker is. After that, HearAct identifies a word and requires the user to analyze a word and determine whether it has the stated letter or not. If the word has the letter, the user must tap and if not, they swipe. This paper presents our HearAct pilot study conducted with thirteen blind users. The preliminary user study results suggest the new form of CAPTCHA has a lot of potential for both blind and visual users. The results also show that the HearAct CAPTCHA can be answered in a shorter time than the text-based CAPTCHAs because HearAct allows users to solve the CAPTCHA using gestures instead of typing. Thus, participants preferred HearAct over audio-based CAPTCHAs. The results of the study also show that the success rate of solving the HearAct CAPTCHA is 82.05% and 43.58% for audio CAPTCHA. A significant usability differences between the System Usability score for HearAct CAPTCHA method was 88.07 compared to audio CAPTCHA was 52.11%. Using gestures to solve the CAPTCHA challenge is the most preferable feature in the HearAct solution. To increase the security of HearAct, it is necessary to increase the number of sounds in the CAPTCHA. There is also a need to improve the CAPTCHA solution to cover wide range of users by adding corresponding image with each sound to meet deaf users' needs; they then need to identify the spelling of the sound maker's word.
CAPTCHAs are widely used by web applications for the purpose of security and privacy. However, tr... more CAPTCHAs are widely used by web applications for the purpose of security and privacy. However, traditional text-based CAPTCHAs are not suitable for sighted users much less users with visual impairments. To address the issue, this paper proposes a new mechanism for CAPTCHA called HearAct, which is a real-time audio-based CAPTCHA that enables easy access for users with visual impairments. The user listens to the sound of something (the "sound-maker"), and he/she must identify what the sound-maker is. After that, HearAct identifies a word and requires the user to analyze a word and determine whether it has the stated letter or not. If the word has the letter, the user must tap and if not, they swipe. This paper presents our HearAct pilot study conducted with thirteen blind users. The preliminary user study results suggest the new form of CAPTCHA has a lot of potential for both blind and visual users. The results also show that the HearAct CAPTCHA can be answered in a shorter time than the text-based CAPTCHAs because HearAct allows users to solve the CAPTCHA using gestures instead of typing. Thus, participants preferred HearAct over audio-based CAPTCHAs. The results of the study also show that the success rate of solving the HearAct CAPTCHA is 82.05% and 43.58% for audio CAPTCHA. A significant usability differences between the System Usability score for HearAct CAPTCHA method was 88.07 compared to audio CAPTCHA was 52.11%. Using gestures to solve the CAPTCHA challenge is the most preferable feature in the HearAct solution. To increase the security of HearAct, it is necessary to increase the number of sounds in the CAPTCHA. There is also a need to improve the CAPTCHA solution to cover wide range of users by adding corresponding image with each sound to meet deaf users' needs; they then need to identify the spelling of the sound maker's word.
Touchscreen calculators require a user to visually locate a button on the screen. This poses a ch... more Touchscreen calculators require a user to visually locate a button on the screen. This poses a challenge for individuals with limited or no vision. To overcome this challenge, prior to use these individuals must invest additional time and energy into memorizing the calculator layout. There is currently no application that simplifies the calculator user-interface for individuals with limited or no vision. To fill this void, this paper proposes BrailleTap. BrailleTap is a button-free calculator application for touchscreen devices that utilizes tap gestures to operate. Using finger tap, the user can input a number in braille and the application will compute the braille code to its corresponding numerical value. Alternatively, using a swipe gesture, the user will be orally prompted to select the desired arithmetic operations. This paper presents our pilot study of BrailleTap that was conducted with two blind users. Results indicate that BrailleTap is faster and more accessible to blind users than the traditional touchscreen calculator. However, in order to increase the efficiency of BrailleTap further development of the underlying algorithm is required.
Touchscreen technology has brought about significant improvements for both normal sighted and vis... more Touchscreen technology has brought about significant improvements for both normal sighted and visually impaired people. Visually impaired people tend to use touchscreen devices because these devices support a screen reader function, providing a cheaper, smaller alternative to screen reader machines. However, most of the available touchscreen keyboards are still largely inaccessible to blind and visually impaired people because they require the user to find an object location on a touchscreen in order to interact with an application. In this paper, we describe SingleTapBraille, a novel nonvisual text input approach for touchscreen devices. With SingleTapBraille, a user enters characters including text, numbers, and punctuations by tapping anywhere on the screen with one finger or a thumb several times based on braille patterns. This paper presents our initial keyboard design to enter Grade 1 and our explorative evaluation of SingleTapBraille conducted with braille instructors and visually impaired users. It also presents the implementation of Grade 2 and an initial evaluation of the improved SingleTapBraille keyboard with a blind user.
Blind people use smartphone devices to perform many daily activities like mobile banking, social ... more Blind people use smartphone devices to perform many daily activities like mobile banking, social media, shopping, health care, etc. While smartphone devices are essential tools for many people who are blind and visually impaired, these devices pose significant security and privacy risks for them. One of the security-related challenges that blind users face is authenticating their identity to access web apps. Most password systems on smartphone devices do not meet the requirements of people with no or low vision, inviting aural and video observation attacks due to the limitations of screen readers, input methods, and user interfaces on web applications. Thus, this study proposes a new web authentication system for blind and visually impaired people, and demonstrates its accessibility, usability and security against observation attacks. This paper explains the design of the proposed authentication technique and reports a study with people living with visual impairments that demonstrates the method's resilience to observation attacks. To login, a user enters six digits of selected Braille characters informed by haptic feedback (vibration). The BraillePassword provides no aural or visual feedback, minimizing the risk of observation or shoulder attack without any extra fees for special hardware. A user study conducted with ten blind participants showed that BraillePassword is a more secure and accessible authentication method for touchscreens than the traditional method, where passwords are entered using a QWERTY keyboard. All participants were able to enter their credentials using the BraillePassword and 82.5% successfully logged into their web application using this method over a week. The researcher was able to guess only 12.5% of passwords entered into BraillePassword after conducting a video based attack, indicating that the BraillePassword achieves better resistance to audio and video attacks than the traditional authentication method while maintaining the accessibility of authentication user interface. We also gathered preliminary evidence that six digits in BraillePassword has a stronger entropy than six digits used in the traditional authentication system.
This paper provides a comparative evaluation study with totally blind participants to evaluate th... more This paper provides a comparative evaluation study with totally blind participants to evaluate their performance using two braille input methods. BrailleEnter, a gesture based input method, is compared to the Swift Braille keyboard, which requires finding the location of six buttons representing braille dots. Six blind participants assessed the performance of both keyboards on Android platforms. There were significant differences between both braille keyboards in term of typing speed, error rate and usability. We found that BrailleEnter was more accurate than the Swift Braille keyboard. BrailleEnter also received higher ratings for usability based on Lewis questionnaire on input methods. At the same time, this study found that the speed of BrailleEnter was significantly slower than the Swift Braille keyboard since it required users to interact six times with the screen to insert just one character. Participants were able to quickly understand the BrailleEnter and Swift Braille input methods. Given their knowledge of Braille patterns, they were also quick to learn how to type on their touchscreen devices using the keyboards. The study indicates both keyboards strengths and weaknesses, and highlights a set of recommendations for developing a more accessible keyboard for blind people. In doing so, we consider possible design improvements for the future development of accessible keyboards for blind users.
This paper provides an evaluation of the SingleTapBraille keyboard, designed to assist people wit... more This paper provides an evaluation of the SingleTapBraille keyboard, designed to assist people with no or low vision in using touchscreen smartphones. This application allows blind users to input characters based on braille patterns. To assess SingleTapBraille, this study compares its performance with that of the commonly used QWERTY keyboard. We conducted an evaluation study with 7 blind participants to examine the performance of both keyboards on Android platforms. Overall, participants were able to quickly adjust to SingleTapBraille and type on touchscreen devices using their knowledge of Braille patterns within fifteen to twenty minutes of introduction to the system. The SingleTapBraille keyboard was better than the QWERTY keyboard in terms of both speed and accuracy, indicating that SingleTapBraille represents an improvement over existing alternatives in making touchscreen keyboards more accessible for blind users. Based on the evaluation results and the feedback of our participants, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of previous keyboards that have been used by participants, as well as those of SingleTapBraille. In doing so, we consider possible design improvements for the future development of accessible keyboards for blind users.
Text entry methods on touchscreen devices are often developed without taking into account the nee... more Text entry methods on touchscreen devices are often developed without taking into account the needs of people with no or low vision. Despite this, there has been significant improvement in touchscreen accessibility for blind people; for example, integrating the screen reader in smartphone devices. The QWERTY keyboard with VoiceOver and many other proposed touchscreen keyboards are in many ways inaccessible to blind people because they primarily require finding keys' locations on a touchscreen and both hands to interact with keyboard interfaces. In order to enable blind people to easily perform text entry, this research has the objective of developing a tool that overcomes the limitations of existing keyboards. In this paper, we describe BrailleEnter, a text input method to support nonvisual interaction on touchscreen devices. BrailleEnter allows users to type letters, numbers, and punctuation by pressing the screen to represent raised Braille dots and briefly tapping to represent unraised dots anywhere on a touchscreen using one finger, based on braille coding. This paper presents our keyboard design rationale and our preliminary evaluation of BrailleEnter, which was conducted with two blind users. The study shows that the BrailleEnter keyboard has the potential to make smartphone devices fully accessible for blind people. The study also highlights that using only one finger to interact with a screen is the most accessible method for blind users.
Deaf people have difficulty communicating with the hearing people around them, but little researc... more Deaf people have difficulty communicating with the hearing people around them, but little research has addressed how new technology may help address this issue. The current research objectives were to (1) survey research on communication barriers encountered by deaf people; (2) survey the available communication applications (apps) and features designed for deaf people; (3) recommend the best existing communication apps for Deaf people; and, (4) identify the best designs and features of these apps for developers. A total of 55 communication apps were examined, but only six were found to be designed specifically as communication apps for deaf people. The survey outlines useful features of available communication apps for this population, examines the needs and preferences of the users, and compares these with existing features. We see that there is a serious need to develop more communication apps that meet the needs of deaf people.
Touchscreen technology has brought about significant improvements for both normal sighted and vis... more Touchscreen technology has brought about significant improvements for both normal sighted and visually impaired people. Visually impaired people tend to use touchscreen devices because these devices support a screen reader function, providing a cheaper, smaller alternative to screen reader machines. However, most of the available touchscreen keyboards are still largely inaccessible to blind and visually impaired people because they require the user to find an object location on a touchscreen in order to interact with an application. In this paper, we describe SingleTapBraille, a novel nonvisual text input approach for touchscreen devices. With SingleTapBraille, a user enters characters including text, numbers, and punctuation by tapping anywhere on the screen with one finger or a thumb several times based on braille patterns. This paper presents our initial keyboard design and our explorative evaluation of SingleTapBraille conducted with braille instructors and visually impaired users.
VirtualEyez is a low-cost mobile system that uses NFC tags (NTAG 203 tags) to help visually impai... more VirtualEyez is a low-cost mobile system that uses NFC tags (NTAG 203 tags) to help visually impaired people shop in a grocery store. While the main purpose of this system is to provide visually impaired people with greater independence when grocery shopping, anyone can use VirtualEyez to navigate a store and obtain product information. The prototype was designed to check product availability, generate optimal directions to products, and provide product information. In this paper, we describe the VirtualEyez system and discuss the results from a preliminary study where participants (visually impaired, partially impaired, and sighted) tried the prototype in a mock grocery store.
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