Design of a tactile graphic I/O tablet and its integration into a personal computer system for blind users
✍ Scribed by Joerg Fricke; Helmut Baehring
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1993
- Weight
- 483 KB
- Volume
- 16
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0745-7138
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✦ Synopsis
Tactile graphic input/output tables could be a valuable support for blind people reading text illustrated with drawings, creating drawings, using software with a graphic user interface, reading maps, or using electronic communication media. The construction of tablets containing conventional tactile elements is precluded not by fundamental technical problems but by the costs. We show that this problem could be overcome by the use of very simple tactile elements integrated in the tablet and driven by an electrorheological fluid. In our solution the tactile surface can be used also as an input tablet allowing immediate manipulation of perceived objects, and creation of drawings. Furthermore, by passive-observation of the user's reading actions the system may support the blind in an intelligent manner, e.g. by presenting automatically additional informations about the object (text or graphic) just being touched. Beyond the description of the technological aspects of such a tablet we deal with its integration into a personal computer system. In a subsequent article we will report results obtained by testing a prototype and give a survey of possible applications.