scholarly journals An Empirical Study for Examining the Performance of Visually Impaired People in Recognizing Shapes through a Vibro-tactile Feedback

Author(s):  
Waseem Safi ◽  
Fabrice Maurel ◽  
Jean-Marc Routoure ◽  
Pierre Beust ◽  
Gaël Dias
2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nabil Hewahi ◽  
Ghadeer Abu-Shaban ◽  
Esraa El-Ashqer ◽  
Ayat Abu-Noqaira ◽  
Nour El-Wadiya

As smart phones appeared with their elegant, easy and exciting touch functionality, the use of touch screen devices has been spreading very fast. Beside the previous advantages, smart phones addresses some new challenges for people with disabilities. Most of visually impaired people don't prefer using touch-screen devices, as these lack the tactile feedback and are visually demanding. However, there have been some solutions to come over these problems, but they were not enough. Some of these solutions is to connect a special equipment to a smart phone to allow the visually impaired user to enter the required input. Other applications help visually impaired people to use the smart phones and read whatever on the screen by hovering their finger tips on the text. Visually impaired people who use smart phones have to memorize QWERTY keyboard which have a large number of targets with small locations specified for each target which will lead to a high proportion of error occurrence. In this paper, the authors propose ABTKA- Arabic Braille Touch Keyboard for Android Users. This application is the first application for Arabic language that uses Braille language for visually impaired who are using smart phones or intended to do so. ABTKA facilitates text-entry functionality by supporting Braille writing on touch screens. The used approach in the proposed system can be easily adapted to other languages. The main advantages of the used approach are that it does not need any extra equipment to be connected to the smart phone; it is dynamic (no fixed positions for the touch points), simple to use, one entry for each character, supported by voice and respond promptly to the input. ABTKA involves various algorithms to achieve its objectives. It starts with entering the user standard locations of finger tips, then the user can enter any Braille character which has to be reindexed to be in the same order of Perkins Brailler's buttons. Any inserted character is converted to Arabic character. Any converted character will have a voice feedback. Words and full sentences will also have voice feedback. ABTKA has been tested by various visually impaired people and proved that it is easy to learn and simple to use.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 727-730
Author(s):  
Nora Loepthien ◽  
Tanja Jehnichen ◽  
Josephine Hauser ◽  
Benjamin Schullcke ◽  
Knut Möller

AbstractThe aim of the project is the development of an aid for blind or visually impaired people, considering economic aspects as well as easy adaptability to various daily situations. Distance sensors were attached to a walking frame (rollator) to detect the distance to obstacles. The information from the sensors is transmitted to the user via tactile feedback. This is realized with a number of vibration motors which were located at the upper belly area of the subject. To test the functionality of the aid to the blind, a testing track with obstacles has been passed through by a number of volunteers. While passing the track five times the needed time to pass through, as well as the number of collisions, were noticed. The results showed a decline in the average time needed to pass though the testing track. This indicates a learning process of the operator to interpret the signals given by the tactile feedback.


i-com ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anke Brock ◽  
Slim Kammoun ◽  
Marc Macé ◽  
Christophe Jouffrais

SummaryIn the absence of vision, mobility and orientation are challenging. Audio and tactile feedback can be used to guide visually impaired people. In this paper, we present two complementary studies on the use of vibrational cues for hand guidance during the exploration of itineraries on a map, and whole body-guidance in a virtual environment. Concretely, we designed wearable Arduino bracelets integrating a vibratory motor producing multiple patterns of pulses. In a first study, this bracelet was used for guiding the hand along unknown routes on an interactive tactile map. A wizard-of-Oz study with six blindfolded participants showed that tactons, vibrational patterns, may be more efficient than audio cues for indicating directions. In a second study, this bracelet was used by blindfolded participants to navigate in a virtual environment. The results presented here show that it is possible to significantly decrease travel distance with vibrational cues. To sum up, these preliminary but complementary studies suggest the interest of vibrational feedback in assistive technology for mobility and orientation for blind people.


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (21) ◽  
pp. 4670
Author(s):  
Xiaochen Zhang ◽  
Hui Zhang ◽  
Linyue Zhang ◽  
Yi Zhu ◽  
Fei Hu

This paper presents the analysis and design of a new, wearable orientation guidance device in modern travel aid systems for blind and visually impaired people. The four-stage double-diamond design model was applied in the design process to achieve human-centric innovation and to ensure technical feasibility and economic viability. Consequently, a sliding tactile feedback wristband was designed and prototyped. Furthermore, a Bezier curve-based adaptive path planner is proposed to guarantee collision-free planned motion. Proof-of-concept experiments on both virtual and real-world scenarios are conducted. The evaluation results confirmed the efficiency and feasibility of the design and imply the design’s remarkable potential in spatial perception rehabilitation.


CICTP 2020 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ammar Muhammad ◽  
Qizhou Hu ◽  
Muhammad Tayyab ◽  
Yikai Wu ◽  
Muhammad Ahtsham

Author(s):  
Olga Novikova ◽  

The special library acts as the cultural and educational center for visually impaired people, and as the center for continuing education. The multifunctional performance of the library is substantiated. The joint projects accomplished in cooperation with theatres and museums and aimed at integrating the visually impaired people into the society are described. Advanced training projects for the library professionals accomplished in 2018 are discussed.


Author(s):  
Heather Tilley ◽  
Jan Eric Olsén

Changing ideas on the nature of and relationship between the senses in nineteenth-century Europe constructed blindness as a disability in often complex ways. The loss or absence of sight was disabling in this period, given vision’s celebrated status, and visually impaired people faced particular social and educational challenges as well as cultural stereotyping as poor, pitiable and intellectually impaired. However, the experience of blind people also came to challenge received ideas that the visual was the privileged mode of accessing information about the world, and contributed to an increasingly complex understanding of the tactile sense. In this chapter, we consider how changing theories of the senses helped shape competing narratives of identity for visually impaired people in the nineteenth century, opening up new possibilities for the embodied experience of blind people by impressing their sensory ability, rather than lack thereof. We focus on a theme that held particular social and cultural interest in nineteenth-century accounts of blindness: travel and geography.


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