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Comparing Computer-Based Drawing Methods for Blind People with Real-Time Tactile Feedback

Published: 19 April 2018 Publication History

Abstract

In this paper, we present a drawing workstation for blind people using a two-dimensional tactile pin-matrix display for in- and output. Four different input modalities, namely menu-based, gesture-based, freehand-stylus and a Time-of-Flight (ToF) depth segmentation of real-world object silhouettes, are utilized to create graphical shapes. Users can freely manipulate shapes after creation. Twelve blind users evaluated and compared the four image creation modalities. During evaluation, participants had to copy four different images. The results show that all modalities are highly appropriate for non-visual drawing tasks. There is no generally preferred drawing modality, but most participants rated the robust and well-known menu-based interaction as very good. Furthermore, menu was second in performance and the most accurate drawing modality. Our evaluation demonstrated direct manipulation works well for blind users at the position of the reading hand. In general, our drawing tool allows blind users to create appealing images.

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References

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  • (2025)How Can Haptic Feedback Assist People with Blind and Low Vision (BLV): A Systematic Literature ReviewACM Transactions on Accessible Computing10.1145/371193118:1(1-57)Online publication date: 13-Jan-2025
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cover image ACM Conferences
CHI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
April 2018
8489 pages
ISBN:9781450356206
DOI:10.1145/3173574
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 19 April 2018

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Author Tags

  1. drawing by blind people
  2. evaluation
  3. tactile drawing
  4. tactile graphics
  5. two-dimensional pin-matrix device

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  • The paper is part of the Mosaik project, which is sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS)

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Cited By

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  • (2025)How Can Haptic Feedback Assist People with Blind and Low Vision (BLV): A Systematic Literature ReviewACM Transactions on Accessible Computing10.1145/371193118:1(1-57)Online publication date: 13-Jan-2025
  • (2024)Revisiting visual accessibility with non-textual content: challenges and solutions for human-computer interactionProceedings of the XXIII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3702038.3702105(1-18)Online publication date: 7-Oct-2024
  • (2024)Towards Construction-Oriented Play for Vision-Diverse PeopleProceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3663548.3675607(1-12)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
  • (2024)FerroVibe: Towards a Modular Tactile Device2024 IEEE Conference on Telepresence10.1109/Telepresence63209.2024.10841694(73-78)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2024
  • (2024)A Large Vision-Language Model based Environment Perception System for Visually Impaired People2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)10.1109/IROS58592.2024.10801813(221-228)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2024
  • (2024)Touch for Accessibility: Haptic SVG Diagrams for Visually Impaired and Blind Individuals2024 IEEE Haptics Symposium (HAPTICS)10.1109/HAPTICS59260.2024.10520858(79-84)Online publication date: 7-Apr-2024
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  • (2023)Designing While Blind: Nonvisual Tools and Inclusive Workflows for Tactile Graphic CreationProceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3597638.3614546(1-8)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2023
  • (2023)TacNote: Tactile and Audio Note-Taking for Non-Visual AccessProceedings of the 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3586183.3606784(1-14)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2023
  • (2023)Simphony: Enhancing Accessible Pattern Design Practices among Blind WeaversProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581047(1-19)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
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