Finger Based Technique (FBT): An Innovative System for Improved Usability for the Blind Users Dynamic Interaction with Mobile Touch Screen Devices

Abstract —This paper presents Finger Based Technique (FBT) prototypes, a novel interaction system for blind users, which is especially designed and developed for non-visual touch screen devices and their applications. The FBT prototypes were developed with virtual keys to be identified based on finger holding positions. Two different models namely the single digit FBT and double digit FBT were propounded. FBT technique were applied using two different phone dialer applications: a single digit virtual key for the single digit FBT model and a double digit virtual key with audio feedback enabling touch as input gesture for the later one. An evaluation with 7 blind participants showed that single digit FBT was significantly faster and more accurate than double digit FBT. In addition to that, single digit FBT was found to be much faster than iPhone VoiceOver entry speeds in performing similar tasks. Furthermore, our research also suggests 11 accessible regions for quick access or navigation in flat touch screen based smart phones for blind users. These accessible regions will serve as a usability design framework and facilitate the developers to place the widget for the blind user for dynamic interaction with the touch screen devices. As far as is known to the authors, this is a novel suggestion. Index Terms — Blind user , Dynamic interaction, Interaction technique , Smartphone, and Touch screen. I. INTRODUCTION S technology changes rapidly, the touch screen devices became dominant in the market. The keyboard is used as an input device to access the information on the desktop and laptop computers by the blind user using assistive technologies such as screen readers. However, such facilitations are not present in touch screen devices. Thus, the accessibility of information and technology becomes a major issue for the blind users. Leading organizations serving the blind people such as the American Foundation

Manuscript received March 14, 2014; revised April 8, 2014.
Mohammed Fakrudeen is with the Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, UK and also with Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, College of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Ha’il, PO Box 2440, Ha’il, Saudi Arabia (e-mail: m.fakrudeen@uoh.edu). Sufian Yousef is with the Department of Engineering and the Built environment, Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, UK (e-mail: sufian.yousef@anglia.ac.uk) M. H. Miraz is with the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, College of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Ha’il, PO Box 2440, Ha’il, Saudi Arabia and also with Glyndŵr University, Wrexham, Wales, UK (e-mail: m.miraz@uoh.edu.sa and m.miraz@glyndwr.ac.uk).

for the blind[1], the Royal National Institute of Blind people[2] and the National Federation of the blind[3] recommend iPhoneas the only touch screen device to be used by the blind people. They are also of the opinion that the complex setup process is involved to set accessibility features in the Android device. The review of the related literature reveals the advancement made in touch screen accessibility for blind users. In spite of this, the basic task of text entry remains error prone and slow. An experiment conducted by Bonner et al.[4] report that the mean entry speed achieved by the blind users using VoiceOver on iPhone device is 0.66 WPM (Words Per Minute). Oliver et al. [5, 6] report that the mean text entry with a VoiceOver like input method was 2.1 WPM. Thus, an efficient text entry method is required for the blind users to perform eyes-free text input. While VoiceOver technique involves exploration of desired virtual keys through hit and trial process, this paper propose a novel technique based on FBT to easily identify the virtual key on the flat touch screen surfaces. Kane et al. [13] is of the opinion that the blind users do not need to understand the spatial representation of the interface layout, they simply need to perform the multi- touch gestures to access the information. However, it requires a lot of efforts from the blind user to understand the gesture to be performed indifferent applications. It is not only time consuming but also causes fatigue, which leads to reduce the performance of the blind users. So far, enough research has not been performed to eliminate or reduce the existing navigational complexity using current technologies such as VoiceOver. The major contributions of this research include designing, developing and evaluating both the prototypes based on FBT technique. To implement the prototypes, the researchers of this project took advantages of the existing phone dialler application which is commonly being used by most users. The objectives of the present study are: 1) to identify the regions on the touch screen surface, which can be easily accessible by the blind users and 2) to analyse the entry speed

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