ColorTact: A Finger Wearable Audio-tactile Device Using Customizable Color Tagging

The conventional tactile diagrams for the visually impaired people are usually limited to a finite number of annotations and its associated Braille legend can extend to several pages. This in turn makes the tactile books bulky and cumbersome. To address this issue, we present the design of ColorTact, a finger-worn assistive device for visually impaired to explore tactile diagrams with audio feedback. The device leverages color-printed tactile diagrams and associates audio supplement to various colors to provide additional information about a single-page tactile diagram. The ColorTact device consists of a color sensor paired with a smart phone app which can play a preset audio information about the distinctive areas of a tactile diagram. Furthermore, the device was designed not to hinder any natural finger movements or tactile sensation. Eliminating the need of additional appendixes for tactile diagrams, the ColorTact device aims to support visually impaired students to learn graphic intensive subjects in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).