A Case Study on Assistive Technology for Visual Impairment Individuals: Adaptations in Household Appliances

This paper describes an assistive technology to provide blind or visually impaired people with the capacity to distinguish the color of objects and the ability to operate a domestic appliance. The work was evaluated through the implementation and test of an electronic prototype to analyze the clothing colors in a washing machine and inform the user both the colors and the current machine status using audio messages. This work is innovative by creating a full integrated solution for a domestic appliance, resulting in advantages for visual impairment individuals.

[1]  Steven K. Feiner,et al.  Computer graphics: principles and practice (2nd ed.) , 1990 .

[2]  Stephen Sprigle,et al.  Approaches for Evaluating the Usability of Assistive Technology Product Prototypes , 2011 .

[3]  Pat Kelley,et al.  A Survey of Assistive Technology and Teacher Preparation Programs for Individuals with Visual Impairments , 2007 .

[4]  M. Carter.  Computer graphics: Principles and practice , 1997 .

[5]  Panu Harmo,et al.  Needs and solutions - home automation and service robots for the elderly and disabled , 2005, 2005 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[6]  Tinnakorn Kornsingha,et al.  A voice system, reading medicament label for visually impaired people , 2011 .

[7]  Hiroaki Seki,et al.  Development of Portable Color Discrimination for the Visually Impaired and Color Blindness , 2004, J. Robotics Mechatronics.

[8]  Nick Cercone,et al.  Assistive Technology Products , 2013, Computational Approaches to Assistive Technologies for People with Disabilities.

[9]  D. Thong Nguyen,et al.  A Vocalized Color Recognition System for the Blind , 1984, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

[10]  Carmen Vázquez,et al.  Cost‐effective microcontrolled optoelectronic portable color identifier for visual impaired persons , 2002 .

[11]  Albert M. Cook,et al.  Assistive Technologies: Principles and Practice , 1995 .

[12]  Eric Campo,et al.  A review of smart homes - Present state and future challenges , 2008, Comput. Methods Programs Biomed..