User Interface Evaluation of an Audio Assisted Tactile Graphics System for Visually Impaired People

Abstract

Tactile graphics are generally used when people with visual impairments access visual infor- mation. Tactile graphics are images that use raised surfaces so that a visually impaired person can feel them. Visually impaired people access tactile graphics by touching them using their fingers of both hands. However, in general, using only fingers make difficult to understand tactile graphics completely; it is often necessary to read a Braille text that explains a tactile graphic simultaneously when they access the tactile graphic. This fact inhibits the access to visual information. Therefore, we have developed an audio as- sisted tactile graphics system using smartphones. In this system the position of the fingertip is measured by using image processing, and the text information stored at that position is presented as audio from the speakers. In this paper, we consider the user interfaces to turn on the audio information, and show the experimental results which were conducted under the cooperation of the sighted participants for discussing the effectiveness of the user interfaces.