Blind-environment interaction through voice augmented objects

Abstract

This article presents an Java-based mobile service that enables blind-environment interaction through voice-augmented objects. To make this possible, it is necessary to tag the object with an associated radio frequency identification and record its voice-based description. The blind users can later use the service to scan surrounding augmented objects and verbalize their identity and characteristics. We use a user centred design in order to guarantee the accessibility of the service for visually impaired and blind people. The required hardware is a near field communication-enabled mobile phone with built-in accelerometer. The client-side application does not require pushing any buttons, browsing any menus, or touching any screens to select and activate any of supported modes: registration, calibration, voice recording, physical object identification, delete voice recording(s), cloud-based file sync and share. Twelve visually impaired individuals (aged 31-84, 6 men and 6 women) have tested the service in two different scenarios: (1) a test based on comparison with a PenFriend labeling unit, and (2) a users' experience test. The results show that selected tangible, multimodal interface (object touching, phone shaking and tilt, voice output) can be used very easily (58 %) or easily (33 %) by blind and visually impaired users who have had no previous experience with other mobile services. Most of participants from the test group agreed that the service could be useful for their daily activities. The service can be used both at home and in public buildings for voice description of objects such as food,

Development of A New Model for the Usability Evaluation of M-commerce Applications

“…The proposed set of attributes was subjected to review by users' experience and HCI professionals. This approach is in accordance with prior studies in validating a newly developed set of models for the usability evaluation of user interfaces [5,6,30,59]. The authors contacted 167 user experience professionals to participate in the review process.…”

“…4. Learnability: Learnability is the ease with which users, during their first use, achieve intended tasks on the software application [59]. However, Kenteris et al [60] define learnability as a situation where the user of the application improves his/her task performance on the second attempt.…”

The Survey on Near Field Communication

“…NFC technology can also be used for the disabled, the elderly and people with chronic diseases. In [ 117 ], an NFC-based model that enables interaction of a blind person with the environment through voice-augmented objects is presented. An NFC tag containing voice-based descriptions is attached to each object within the user’s surroundings, and the user can make use of a smartphone to scan the surrounding augmented objects to verbalize their identity and characteristics.…”

Tap it again, Sam: Harmonizing Personal Environments towards Lifelong Learning

“…The article from Ivanov [30] presents a mobile service that enables blind-environment interaction through voice-augmented objects by tagging objects with an associated voice-based description. Users can both drop their voice recording in a tag or listen already existing ones.…”

“…Harmonizing personal learning environments is key to enable smooth access to learning contents, in particular, with natural interactions and suitable visualizations. User identification [20] [18], [19] Activity recognition [21]- [24] Smart home [27] [25], [26], [28], [29] Disable support [30], [31] Payment and simulations [15] [32]…”