TypeInBraille : quick typing on smartphones by blind users

Smartphones provide new exciting opportunities to visually impaired users because these devices can support new assistive technologies that cannot be deployed on desktops or laptops. Indeed, smartphones can be used in a number of situations in which it is not practical to rely on standard devices (i.e., desktop or laptops) and they are also equipped with sensors, like GPS receivers, accelerometers, and gyroscopes, that can be used to acquire information about the user’s context. Some devices, like the iPhone, are rapidly gaining popularity among the visually impaired since the use of screen reader applications renders these devices accessible. However, there are still some operations that require a longer time or higher mental workload to be completed by a visually impaired user. In particular, in this paper we consider the problem of typing on devices not equipped with a physical keyboard. We propose a novel technique, called TypeInBraille, that is based on the Braille code and hence is specifically designed for blind users. The experimental evaluation we conducted demonstrates that our proposed solution achieves much higher performance when compared to the standard typing solution based on the on-screen QWERTY keyboard. In addition, TypeInBraille also enables the users to type when audio feedback is not reliable or even totally absent.