[dbaust] New interest in braille on smart phones
- From: "claire tellefson" <desktalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "deafblind freelist" <dbaust@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 8 May 2012 13:37:26 +1000
Braille app frees 'keyboard slaves'
Deborah Netburn
February 22, 2012 - 9:43AM
Would anyone describe typing on an iPhone as a pleasant experience?
Here to texters' rescue is Braille Touch, a new app that enables people
to type messages on an Android or iPhone touch screen without having to
look down.
The app is designed for people who are visually impaired, but that
doesn't mean the rest of us can't use it too.
"We have become slaves to keyboards that are too small and that have too
many buttons," Mario Romero, a post-doctoral fellow at Georgia Tech's
School for Interactive Computing and the lead researcher on a paper
about Braille Touch, said in an interview. "Almost everyone has to look
at the keyboard when they send a text message. We lose sight
every time we text. And I don't think that's right."
Braille Touch would change that. It is based on Computer Braille, a
system of typing that allows users to input up to 63 characters through
pressing different combinations of just six buttons - three on each side
of the phone. Users of this new typing system hold the phone facing away
from the body, using the middle three fingers of each
hand to chord in letters, numbers and characters such as exclamation
points and the "at" sign. Spaces and backspaces can be entered through
gestures of flicking left or right on the phone.
In user tests conducted by the Georgia Tech researchers, some visually
impaired people were able to reach up to 32 words per minute with 92 per
cent accuracy with a prototype app for the iPhone.
The researchers, who plan to launch the app for free for Android and iOS
devices, are especially concerned about making smartphones more
accessible to people who have impaired vision, but they also think the
overall QWERTY system - which was designed in 1870 - could use an overhaul.
"Whether it's Braille Touch or whether Braille Touch just points the way
to some other coded alphabet, I think we should move away from the
QWERTY keyboard," Romero said.
The team at Georgia Tech will spend the next several months conducting
studies to see whether people are willing to take the time to learn a
new way of typing.
Romero said he was able to learn the code in about a week of playing
around with the app while walking from his car to his house.
In the meantime, Romero and his colleagues are working to get Braille
Touch out as soon as possible. The keyboard is ready, they say, but they
want to make sure the directions for how to use it are accessible to the
visually impaired.
LA Times
This story was found at:
www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/braille-app-frees-keyboard-slaves-201202
22-1tmnz.html
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