Abstract
Recently, computer is the necessary device for our lives. People use their own computer for information-gathering everyday. Additionally, small computer like smartphone or tablet computer become popular devices. However, it is difficult for visually-impaired persons to operate the computer because recent computer operating systems use graphical user interface (GUI). To solve the problem for visually-impaired persons, various assist devices for them have been developed. Some of them use haptic technology. Previously, we have proposed a haptic device as an aid for GUI operation for visually-impaired persons. Novint Falcon is used as a low-cost haptic device. The computer desktop GUI is represented as a virtual work-space. A graphic window is rendered as the front surface of a solid box in VR. Touching this virtual surface of the box with the haptic input device, the user can feel the entire window. Using this system, multiple-window GUI can be operated by visually-impaired persons. Discrimination experiments with such windows are reported.
