ABSTRACT
Recent advances in touch screen technology have increased the prevalence of touch screens and have prompted a wave of new touch screen-based devices. However, touch screens are still largely inaccessible to blind users, who must adopt error-prone compensatory strategies to use them or find accessible alternatives. This inaccessibility is due to interaction techniques that require the user to visually locate objects on the screen. To address this problem, we introduce Slide Rule, a set of audio-based multi-touch interaction techniques that enable blind users to access touch screen applications. We describe the design of Slide Rule, our interaction techniques, and a user study in which 10 blind people used Slide Rule and a button-based Pocket PC screen reader. Results show that Slide Rule was significantly faster than the button-based system, and was preferred by 7 of 10 users. However, users made more errors when using Slide Rule than when using the more familiar button-based system.
- Aitchison, J. and Brown, J.A.C. (1957). The Lognormal Distribution. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- Amar, R., Dow, S., Gordon, R., Hamid, M.R. and Sellers, C. (2003). Mobile ADVICE: an accessible device for visually impaired capability enhancement. In Proc. CHI '03, ACM Press, 918--919. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Brewster, S.A. and Cryer, P.G. (1999). Maximising screen-space on mobile computing devices. In Proc. CHI '99, ACM Press, 224--225. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Buxton, W., Hill, R. and Rowley, P. (1985). Issues and techniques in touch-sensitive tablet input. In Proc. SIGGRAPH '85, ACM Press, 215--224. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Harrison, B.L., Fishkin, K.P., Gujar, A., Mochon, C. and Want, R. (1998). Squeeze me, hold me, tilt me! An exploration of manipulative user interfaces. In Proc. CHI '98, ACM Press, 17--24. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hill, D.R. and Grieb, C. (1988). Substitution for a restricted visual channel in multimodal computer-human dialogue. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 18(2), 285--304.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Holm, S. (1979). A simple sequentially rejective multiple test procedure. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, 6, 65--70.Google Scholar
- Landau, S. and Wells, L. (2003). Merging tactile sensory input and audio data by means of the Talking Tactile Tablet. In Proc. EuroHaptics '03, IEEE Computer Society, 414--418.Google Scholar
- Li, K.A., Baudisch, P. and Hinckley, K. (2008). Blindsight: eyes-free access to mobile phones. In Proc. CHI '08, ACM Press, 1389--1398. Google ScholarDigital Library
- MacKenzie, I.S. and Oniszczak, A. (1998). A comparison of three selection techniques for touchpads. In Proc. CHI '98, ACM Press, 336--343. Google ScholarDigital Library
- O'Neill, E., Kaenampornpan, M., Kostakos, V., Warr, A. and Woodgate, D. (2006). Can we do without GUIs? Gesture and speech interaction with a patient information system. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 10 (5), 269--283. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Parhi, P., Karlson, A.K. and Bederson, B.B. (2006). Target size study for one-handed thumb use on small touchscreen devices. In Proc. MobileHCI '06, ACM Press, 203--210. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Pirhonen, A., Brewster, S. and Holguin, C. (2002). Gestural and audio metaphors as a means of control for mobile devices. In Proc. CHI '02, ACM Press, 291--298. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Potter, R.L., Weldon, L.J. and Shneiderman, B. (1988). Improving the accuracy of touch screens: an experimental evaluation of three strategies. In Proc. CHI '88, ACM Press, 27--32. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Sánchez, J. and Aguayo, F. (2007). Mobile messenger for the blind. In C. Stephanidis and M. Pieper (eds.), Universal Access in Ambient Intelligence Environments, Springer, 369--385. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Sánchez, J. and Maureira, E. (2007). Subway Mobility Assistance Tools for Blind Users. In C. Stephanidis and M. Pieper (eds.), Universal Access in Ambient Intelligence Environments, Springer, 386--404. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Sears, A. and Shneiderman, B. (1991). High precision touchscreens: design strategies and comparisons with a mouse. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 34(4), 593--613. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Vanderheiden, G.C. (1996). Use of audio-haptic interface techniques to allow nonvisual access to touchscreen appliances. Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting Proceedings, 40, 1266.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Wu, M. and Balakrishnan, R. (2003). Multi-finger and whole hand gestural interaction techniques for multi-user tabletop displays. In Proc. UIST '03, ACM Press, 193--202. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Yfantidis, G. and Evreinov, G. (2006). Adaptive blind interaction technique for touchscreens. Universal Access in the Information Society, 4(4), 328--337. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Zhao, S., Dragicevic, P., Chignell, M., Balakrishnan, R. and Baudisch, P. (2007). Earpod: eyes-free menu selection using touch input and reactive audio feedback. In Proc. CHI '07. ACM Press, 1395--1404. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Slide rule: making mobile touch screens accessible to blind people using multi-touch interaction techniques
Recommendations
Usable gestures for blind people: understanding preference and performance
CHI '11: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsDespite growing awareness of the accessibility issues surrounding touch screen use by blind people, designers still face challenges when creating accessible touch screen interfaces. One major stumbling block is a lack of understanding about how blind ...
Access overlays: improving non-visual access to large touch screens for blind users
UIST '11: Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technologyMany touch screens remain inaccessible to blind users, and those approaches to providing access that do exist offer minimal support for interacting with large touch screens or spatial data. In this paper, we introduce a set of three software-based ...
Touchplates: low-cost tactile overlays for visually impaired touch screen users
ASSETS '13: Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and AccessibilityAdding tactile feedback to touch screens can improve their accessibility to blind users, but prior approaches to integrating tactile feedback with touch screens have either offered limited functionality or required extensive (and typically expensive) ...
Comments