Interface for people with limited vision

1. Interface for people with limited vision Yunzhou wu Computer science department of UGA

2. Three kinds of solution • Magnification solutions • Speech solutions • Braille solutions

3. Closed Circuit Television Magnifiers(CCTV) • Standard CCTVs a camera & monitor screen(B/W or color) • Portable CCTVs a small “handhold” camera • Connecting a CCTV to computer share screen with computer

4. SmartView 5000 SmartView 8000

5. Portable CCTVs

6. Training & price for cctv • Easy to use • B/w units starts at $1,800 • Portable starts at about $900 • Costs about $2,900 for CCTV that scans material in and then scroll text across the screen automatically

7. Optical character recognition (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 handwritten • If connected to PC, can convert the materials to Braille, large print, computer files or other media.

8. OCR sample • Product of telesensory Inc.

9. 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

10. Synthetic Voice “Talking” computers • 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.

11. 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

12. Braille 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.

13. Training & price for 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

14. Braille 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 PCS • Compatible with microsoft windows, dos & WordPerfect

15. 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.

16. Training & Price for 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

17. A Braille PDA keyboard • Can work as a note-taker • Once 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 display

18. Training & Price for 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.

19. More infomation • http://www.lighthouse.org/resources_adaptive_tech.htm • www.humanware.com • www.aisquared.com • www.arkenstone.org • www.blazie.com