Interface for people with Interface for people with limited visionlimited vision

Yunzhou wuComputer science department of UGA

Three kinds of solutionThree kinds of solution

Magnification solutionsSpeech solutionsBraille solutions

Closed Circuit Television Closed Circuit Television Magnifiers(CCTV)Magnifiers(CCTV)

Standard CCTVs

a camera & monitor screen(B/W or color)

Portable CCTVs

a small “handhold” cameraConnecting a CCTV to computer

share screen with computer

SmartView 5000 SmartView 8000

Portable CCTVs

Training & price Training & price for cctvfor cctv

Easy to useB/w units starts at $1,800Portable starts at about $900Costs about $2,900 for CCTV that scans

material in and then scroll text across the screen automatically

Optical character recognition Optical character recognition (OCR) System(OCR) System

“personal reading machine for totally blind or partially sighted to read “print”

OCR camera scans the materials and reads the printed page out loud using synthetic voice

Can not read any handwrittenIf connected to PC, can convert the

materials to Braille, large print, computer files or other media.

OCR sampleOCR sample

Product of telesensory Inc.

OCR(cont’d)OCR(cont’d)

Training

a few hours for people who never use a computer Price

OCR with build-in voice: starts at $4,000

OCR connected to PC: starts at $1,500

Synthetic Voice “Talking” Synthetic Voice “Talking” computerscomputers

Hardware synthesizing: using hardware to synthesize voice. In DOS env.

Software synthesizing: in Windows95 or higher version.

synthesizer “reads” the screen via its computer-generated voice, it also “navigates” the screen, it announces cursor location and the highlighted item and monitor other computer functions.

users can do ‘word processing ‘ with its help.

Talking computers(cont’d)Talking computers(cont’d)

Training: about 60 hours for users with some understanding

of computers and word processing. Price: screen-reading software: $600-$1,400(Windows) $450-$600 (DOS) hardware synthesizer: $300-$1,200 vary from different quality of speech generated

Braille displayBraille display

Refreshable Braille devices (sometimes called paperless Braille) provide access to PCs via electronic Braille. The Braille display, which changes as the cursor moves from line to line on the computer screen, consists of plastic pins that are electronically raised and lowered to form Braille letters. As many as 80 Braille letters can be displayed at one time.

Training & price Training & price for Braille displayfor Braille display

Requires many hours of training to use, and can only be used by experienced Braille readers

$5,500 for 40-character display$8,000 for 65-character display$12,000 for 80-character display

Braille translation softwareBraille translation software

There is software available that allows a person to translate print to Braille and Braille to print from a standard PC

Available for IBM, Macintosh PCSCompatible with microsoft windows, dos &

WordPerfect

Braille printer(embosser)Braille printer(embosser)

Braille printers connect to PC as the normal printers do

Translate text to Braille before sending it to printer via translation software.

Braille printers can be noisy.

Training & Price Training & Price for braille printerfor braille printer

Require a few hours to learn to use printer & associated translation software.

Price is varied by printing speed , start from $1,800; software starts about $500

A Braille PDAA Braille PDACan work as a note-

takerOnce connecting it to

PC, users can:

download doc from or upload doc to PC

operate PC with the display help

print your doc to printer

keyboard

display

Training & Price Training & Price for Braille PDAfor Braille PDA

Experienced users will take about 20 hours to learn the basic functions, if the keyboard is typewriter like, it will take additional 20 hours to learn to use the keyboard.

Starts from $3,800 ~$5,500.

More infomationMore infomation

http://www.lighthouse.org/resources_adaptive_tech.htm

www.humanware.comwww.aisquared.comwww.arkenstone.orgwww.blazie.com