MATRACA: a tool to provide support for people with impaired vision when using the computer for simple tasks

This paper introduces a computational tool - MATRACA - developed for the purpose of minimizing accessibility constraints related to the use of computers by people with visual disabilities (low vision or blind users). MATRACA offers a text edition environment associated to a vocal spell checker and an interface with special graphical elements and sound elements manipulated by speech synthesizer and/or speech recognition. Considering several aspects of accessibility, MATRACA provides several tasks that can be performed using the computer, where most of application are highly bounded to visual features, and dependence, considering the user profile. Several quality technologies were included in MATRACA creating a flexible environment in an open source tool.