András Arató

Java-Powered Braille Slate Talker

A new device, the Braille Slate Talker, is introduced. An ordinary hand held device (a PDA) is used with a fixed layout plastic guide placed over the touch screen to allow Braille input. Contracted Braille is converted to text by a table-driven state machine. Programs are written in Java language to provide full hardware and software platform independence. Future network applications will use Sun’s Jini technology.

MOST-NNG: an accessible GPS navigation application integrated into the mobile slate talker (MOST) for the blind

Over the recent years, GPS navigation has been attracting a growing attention among the visually impaired. This is because assistive technologies can obviously be based on commercially available solutions, as the GPS capable hand-held devices entered the size range of the ordinary mobile phones, and are available at an ever more affordable price, now providing a real choice for a wider audience. For many, an accessible GPS navigator has even become an indispensable tool, an integral part of their every-day life. Since the most appropriate (or at least the most favored) device type for GPS navigation is the so-called PDA, whose user interface is dominated by a touch screen and usually lacks any keyboard, accessibility for the blind remains an issue. This issue has successfully been tackled by the MOST-NNG project in which, the MObile Slate Talkers blind-friendly user interface has been combined with Hungarys leading iGO navigator.

Usability evaluation of the MOST mobile assistant (slattalker)

The goal of the MOST project is to develop a novel, inexpensive, easy-to-use digital talking device for blind and visually impaired users based on off-the-shelf handheld computers (Personal Digital Assistant). The device provides a novel user interface based on a simple menu system and Braille text input, and a range of application programs to support everyday tasks, including clock, notepad, phone and short messaging, email. This paper reports on the usability evaluation of the device, its strategy and implementation, and shows that our approach results in an easy to learn and use system with input speed comparable to sighted users

How Can Java Be Made Blind-Friendly

The widely used and highly popular Java programming language is proved to be a great tool for developing platform independent applications. Everyday users mostly encounter them when using portable devices (mobile phones, PDAs, etc). However, the ordinary Java applications are inaccessible for the blind in general. Even the most used screen readers can only be enabled to handle GUI elements of a Java application by an additional adaptation package (e.g. access bridge for Jaws). Even with this, only a portion of existing Java programs that use swing classes may be made partially accessible for the blind. The solution offered eliminates the need of any screen reader.

Braille to Text Translation for Hungarian

This paper discusses the translation of Hungarian Braille to text. A multi-lingual, table-driven Braille translator is described. The types of Hungarian Braille are discussed and a set of rules are derived and presented for 44-rule Hungarian Braille for the Braille translator.

Ten years of computer use by visually impaired people in Hungary

COMPUTERS AND AIDS BASED ON MICRO-PROCESSING USED BY VISUALLY IMPAIRED HUNGARIANS At the beginning of the 1980s there were nine blind computer programmers in different computer centers in Hungary, where various computers (ICL, Simens, Honeywell) were in use. Some of the programmers relied on their memory from when they could see, sometimes calling on their colleagues for assistance. Five worked with a Hungarian-developed one-cell refreshable braille display connected to the normal display. This showed only one braille character, the character at the cursor of the normal display. The programmers could quickly go through material character by character or line by line with cursor movement keys and could check both texts and messages on the screen. The one-cell braille display was a highly usable tool and it gave its users the ability to work independently. At the same time, information was available about devices used in the United States and Canada: the VersaBraille System (produced by Telesensory Systems, Inc.) and talking terminals. The school for blind children and the Association for the Blind bought three VersaBraille Systems in 1984 and updated versions in 1989. The equipment was very well-designed and constructed. It was portable and contained a text processing system with braille input and temporary braille output in a twenty-character long line. The VersaBraille could be connected to either a braille or dot matrix printer to produce hardcopy in print or in braille. A terminal program facilitated communication with other computer systems. Two or three blind teachers used these devices for taking braille notes, writing braille music notations and producing braille materials. Problems emerged, however. Producing inkprint text from braille coded text was difficult, since Hungarian braille does not accommodate the English symbols. Considering only the letters, forty-two dot-codes are necessary for Hungarian. Only twenty-four dot-codes representing letters are common to both English and Hungarian Braille. Instead of the other eighteen letters, different signs were utilized, and of course many other signs also were unique. About forty percent of the characters in an inkprint text would be incorrect. In addition, the price of this device was extremely high. Except for two or three institutions, nobody in Hungary could afford the Versabraille or similar devices. At the same time the personal computer began to become more common, and it could be seen that many blind people would need to use computers and text editing systems. A cheap, reliable, usable output for the blind was necessary. We had experience in using tools with a fixed-dictionary speech output (talking watch; SDK85, a System Design Kit combined with a Digi-Talker synthesizer with 144 words). We felt that a new and promising area of development would be synthesized voice output. However, in displaying computer information only a text-to-speech based system can be taken into consideration. The fixed vocabulary system has limited usefulness. A Hungarian speech system was not, at that time, available on the market. Research was carried out in the field of formant analysis and synthesis for the Hungarian language by the Linguistic Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. A text-to-speech system worked on a PDP-11 machine in laboratory circumstances. Finally, using the results of the research of the Linguistic Institute, a text-to-speech system was developed in the Central Research Institute for Physics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. On the basis of this artificial speech system, a low-cost, talking personal computer was built in the summer of 1985. The input/output system of the Z80 based microcomputer was modified so that even the screen editing system was usable by visually handicapped people. The following talking programs could be used on the first version of the BraiLab computer: the talking BASIC and the talking Assembler with Disassembler and monitor. …

Teaching Morse Language to a Deaf-Blind Person for Reading and Writing SMS on an Ordinary Vibrating Smartphone

Deaf-blind people have a very small window to the world. New technology can help, but portable Braille lines are expensive. We developed and tested a very low cost method for reading and writing SMS messages with a Hungarian deaf-blind person using Android smartphone with vibrating motor built in. Words and characters were converted to vibrating Braille dots and Morse words. Morse was taught as code for recognizing characters and also as language for recognizing words.

Assessing Braille Input Efficiency on Mobile Devices

Our team has conducted a research on how today’s Braille input methods suit the needs of blind smartphone users. Hungarian blind volunteers (all active Braille users) were invited to participate. The research consisted of a survey on the participants’ relation to Braille and a series of input tests based on short Hungarian and multilingual texts both in grade 1 and 2 Braille using different devices and methods. Results showed that experienced Braille users can achieve remarkably high speeds and accuracy and that the use of contracted Braille further increases input efficiency. This paper also discusses the characteristics of typos occuring and their manual or automated correction during Braille input on mobile devices. Adding adequate automated correction mechanisms optimized for Braille typos may further increase the input speed nearing or even surpassing the speed of sighted people using ordinary on-screen input methods.

Radio computer communications network for DisABLED people

Communication is essential for people with all kinds of disabilities. Blind people can access more information, deaf people can have conversation with others, mobility impaired people can also access information easier. What to do in a country like Hungary which has a shortage of telephone lines? This article describes a possible solution through extending two-way radio to the internet.