Digital Drawing Tools for Blind Users: A State-of-the-Art and Requirement Analysis

Blind people normally fulfill drawing tasks with low-tech analog tools in school and everyday life. Such tools are lacking in drawing support and error correction. To overcome these problems, systems for digital graphic access and creation exist. In this paper, an analysis of several software projects for non-visual drawing support is performed. The analysis is used to extract requirements for a digital non-visual drawing system from developers and users. The literature-based findings are extended to a more complete checklist of thirty-five requirements in four categories that cover the principles of the ISO 9241-110 standard. Subsequently, the analyzed projects are tested against the proposed checklist. Finally, six blind people rated the individual importance of each requirement to give a hint which features are most important for user acceptance.

[1]  Gerhard Weber,et al.  Collaborative Creation of Digital Tactile Graphics , 2015, ASSETS.

[2]  Bruce N. Walker,et al.  Evaluating text descriptions of mathematical graphs , 2010, ASSETS '10.

[3]  Makoto Kobayashi,et al.  Communication System for the Blind Using Tactile Displays and Ultrasonic Pens - MIMIZU , 2004, ICCHP.

[4]  Gerhard Weber,et al.  Production of Accessible Tactile Graphics , 2014, ICCHP.

[5]  Computers Helping People with Special Needs , 2010, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[6]  Katsuhito Yamaguchi,et al.  The Development of a Universal Design Tactile Graphics Production System BPLOT2 , 2008, ICCHP.

[7]  Richard E. Ladner,et al.  Automating tactile graphics translation , 2005, Assets '05.

[8]  Dianne T. V. Pawluk,et al.  A multimodal, computer-based drawing system for persons who are blind and visually impaired , 2010, ASSETS '10.

[9]  Klaus Miesenberger.  Computers Helping People with Special Needs, 11th International Conference, ICCHP 2008, Linz, Austria, July 9-11, 2008. Proceedings , 2008, ICCHP.

[10]  Barbara Leporini,et al.  Playing with geometry: a Multimodal Android App for Blind Children , 2015, CHItaly.

[11]  Joan De Boeck,et al.  Computers Helping People with Special Needs , 2012, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[12]  Sandra Fernando.  Blind drawing: investigation into screen location tracking for computer aided interactive drawing , 2015, ASAC.

[13]  Ryoji Fukuda,et al.  Graphic Editor for Visually Impaired Users , 2006, ICCHP.

[14]  Wolfgang L. Zagler,et al.  Computers Helping People with Special Needs, 12th International Conference, ICCHP 2010, Vienna, Austria, July 14-16, 2010, Proceedings, Part II , 2010, ICCHP.

[15]  James A. Landay,et al.  A study of blind drawing practice: creating graphical information without the visual channel , 2000, Assets '00.

[16]  James A. Landay,et al.  The integrated communication 2 draw (IC2D): a drawing program for the visually impaired , 1999, CHI EA '99.

[17]  Peter Albert.  Math Class: An Application for Dynamic Tactile Graphics , 2006, ICCHP.

[18]  Makoto Kobayashi,et al.  A Prototype of the Freely Rewritable Tactile Drawing System for Persons who are Blind , 2002 .

[19]  Wolfgang L. Zagler,et al.  Computers Helping People with Special Needs, 10th International Conference, ICCHP 2006, Linz, Austria, July 11-13, 2006, Proceedings , 2006, ICCHP.

[20]  Gerhard Weber.  Interaktive Dialogtechniken für blinde Rechnerbenutzer , 1989 .

[21]  S. Ono,et al.  Practical use of interactive tactile graphic display system at a school for the blind (2) , 2006 .

[22]  Gerhard Weber,et al.  SVGPlott - Generating Adaptive and Accessible Audio-Tactile Function Graphs , 2014, ICCHP.

[23]  Angela Constantinescu,et al.  Improving the Accessibility of ASCII Graphics for the Blind Students , 2010, ICCHP.

[24]  K. Rassmus-Grohn,et al.  AHEAD - Audio-Haptic Drawing Editor And Explorer for Education , 2007, 2007 IEEE International Workshop on Haptic, Audio and Visual Environments and Games.

[25]  Stephen A. Brewster,et al.  Web-based haptic applications for blind people to create virtual graphs , 2003, 11th Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems, 2003. HAPTICS 2003. Proceedings..

[26]  Christiane Taras,et al.  Darstellungs- und Interaktionstechniken zur effizienten Nutzung grafischer Oberflächen durch Blinde und Sehbehinderte , 2011 .

[27]  Martin Kurze,et al.  TDraw: a computer-based tactile drawing tool for blind people , 1996, Assets '96.

[28]  Paul Blenkhorn,et al.  Using speech and touch to enable blind people to access schematic diagrams , 1998, J. Netw. Comput. Appl..

[29]  Makoto Kobayashi,et al.  A Tactile Display System Equipped with a Pointing Device - MIMIZU , 2002, ICCHP.

[30]  William Grussenmeyer.  Draw and drag: accessible touchscreen geometry for students who are blind , 2015, ASAC.

[31]  John A. Gardner,et al.  Access by Blind Students and Professionals to Mainstream Math and Science , 2002, ICCHP.

[32]  Wolfgang L. Zagler,et al.  Computers helping people with special needs : 9th International Conference, ICCHP 2004, Paris, France, July 7-9, 2004 : proceedings , 2004 .

[33]  Yuta Sasaki,et al.  Development of Synchronized CUI and GUI for Universal Design Tactile Graphics Production System BPLOT3 , 2014, ICCHP.