Barbara Leporini
ABSTRACT
In this paper we analyze the interaction of blind users with Apple touchscreen devices iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, accessible to the visually-impaired thanks to their pre-installed VoiceOver screen reader or magnifier. Specifically, we focus on the gestures offered by VoiceOver to simplify interaction for blind users. A usability inspection of the devices' user interfaces has been performed and integrated with user feedback collected via an online survey taken by 55 totally blind users. Results confirm that VoiceOver makes the Apple devices basically accessible to blind users, but there are still some issues related to usability. Users normally believe that accessibility integrated with VoiceOver is an important innovation, but some operations, such as the writing of long text, take too long or are not comfortable. Results suggest that a multimodal approach on mobile touchscreen devices does not offer a simple and satisfactory interaction paradigm for all and it deserves further investigation. Three possible solutions for improving user interface interaction and offering a simpler and more comfortable experience for blind individuals were proposed to the survey participants, gathering their positive feedback.
- Apple, iPad 2 User Guide (For iOS 4.3 Software), March, 2011. http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/ipad_2_user_guide.pdfGoogle Scholar
- Arroba, P., Vallejo, J. C., Araujo, A., Fraga D., Moya, J. M. A Methodology for Developing Accessible Mobile Platforms over Leading Devices for Visually Impaired People, In Proc. Ambient Assisted Living, LNCS Vol. 6693 (2011), 209--215.Google Scholar
- Benedito, J., Guerreiro, T., Nicolau, H., Gonçalves, D. The key role of touch in non-visual mobile interaction. In Proc. MobileHCI '10, ACM, New York, USA, (2010), 379--380. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bonner, M., Brudvik, J., Abowd, G., Edwards, W. K. No-Look Notes: Accessible eyes-free multi-touch text entry. In Proc. Pervasive 2010, LNCS Vol. 6030, (2010), 409--426. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Brewster, S., Brown, L. M. Tactons: structured tactile messages for non-visual information display. In Proc. AUIC '04, A. Cockburn (Ed.), Vol. 28. Australian Computer Society, Inc., Darlinghurst, Australia (2004), 15--23. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Goble, C., Harper, S., Stevens, R. The travails of visually impaired web travellers. In Proc. Hypertext 2000 (2000), 1--10. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Oliveira, J, Guerreiro, T, Nicolau, H, Jorge, J, and Gonçalves D. 2011. BrailleType: unleashing braille over touch screen mobile phones. In Proc. INTERACT 2011, LNCS Vol. Part I. Springer-Verlag, (2011), 100--107. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Guerreiro, T., Oliveira, J., Benedito, J., Nicolau, H., Jorge, J., Gonçalves, D. Blind people and mobile keypads: accounting for individual differences. In Proc. INTERACT 2011, LNCS Vol. Part I (2011), 65--82. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Kane, S. K., Wobbrock, J. O., Ladner, R. E. Usable gestures for blind people: understanding preference and performance. In Proc. of CHI '11, ACM (2011), 413--422. Google ScholarDigital Library
- 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 Proc. of Assets '08. ACM (2008), 73--80 Google ScholarDigital Library
- Koskinen, E., Kaaresoja, T., Laitinen, P. Feel-good touch: finding the most pleasant tactile feedback for a mobile touch screen button. In Proc. ICMI '08. ACM, New York, NY, USA (2008), 297--304. Google ScholarDigital Library
- McGookin, D., Brewster, S., Jiang, W. W. Investigating touchscreen accessibility for people with visual impairments. In Proc. of NordiCHI '08, ACM (2008), 298--307. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Qian, H., Kuber, R., Sears, A. Towards identifying distinguishable tactons for use with mobile devices. In Proc. Assets '09. ACM, New York, NY, USA (2009), 257--258. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Schulz, T., Fuglerud, K. Universal Mobile Device (UMD)---Methods, Inventory, and Dissemination, Note DART/2010/01, January 29 (2010).Google Scholar
- Wobbrock, J. O., Kane, S. K., Gajos, K. Z., Harada, S., Froehlich, J. Ability-based design: Concept, principles and examples, ACM Trans. Access. Comput. 3, 3, Article 9 (2011). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Yatani, K., Truong, K. N. SemFeel: a user interface with semantic tactile feedback for mobile touch-screen devices. In Proc. UIST '09. ACM, New York, USA (2009), 111--120. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Interacting with mobile devices via VoiceOver: usability and accessibility issues
Recommendations
Guidelines for an accessible web automation interface
ASSETS '11: The proceedings of the 13th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibilityIn recent years, the Web has become an ever more sophisticated and irreplaceable tool in our daily lives. While the visual Web has been advancing at a rapid pace, assistive technology has not been able to keep up, increasingly putting visually impaired ...
Accessibility of android-based mobile devices: a prototype to investigate interaction with blind users
ICCHP'12: Proceedings of the 13th international conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs - Volume Part IIThe study presented in this paper is part of mobile accessibility research with particular reference to the interaction with touch-screen based smartphones. Its aim was to gather information, tips and indications on interaction with a touch-screen by ...
Webanywhere: enabling a screen reading interface for the web on any computer
WWW '08: Proceedings of the 17th international conference on World Wide WebPeople often use computers other than their own to access web content, but blind users are restricted to using computers equipped with expensive, special-purpose screen reading programs that they use to access the web. WebAnywhere is a web-based, self-...
Comments