Hi,
Well, for motor difficulties I believe the App Store ships a Stylus
for the IPhone and IPod Touch, so they may ship out a tactile
keyboard. There is only so much a small device like the IPhone can
handle.
I have fath in Apple, that whatever they do, they will find a good
solution.
Thanks for listening,
Alex,
On 12-Sep-08, at 11:52 AM, Chris Blouch wrote:
It seems like any solution needs to be usable without modification
to the device. Adding external boxes would seem to limit the utility
of such a small portable device. If we went down that route you
could just add one of those laser projected keyboards or carry
around a blue-tooth keyboard, but I doubt people would want that.
Historically Apple has also gravitated towards mainstream solutions
so that they can ship one version or one device that works for
everyone, so that implies a software solution. The braille solution
makes some sense as there are a limited amount of touch screen
positions you can target accurately without tactile feedback. So a
few touch point combinations, gestures, accelerometer values and a
few real buttons are what we have for input and audio and vibration
are what we have for output. Not a somewhat limited set to work with.
CB
Greg Kearney wrote:
Let me try this idea for accessible touch systems on you. How to
make the touch screens accessible is a big issue with no clear
solution. As more devices adopt this interface something will have
to be done however. Here is one approach to the issue:
Braille input for touch screen devices
Braille is the international standard for reading, and in this
case, writing employed by the blind. Braille offers a possible
method of interacting with and controlling touch screen devices
such as the iPod Touch and the iPhone. Braille is a corded entry
system made up of six positions of the fingers.
Touch screens could be programed to detect the various combinations
of finger presses and their relationship to each other and then act
accordingly. This combined with text to speech output would permit
the blind user to control a touch screen device.
When in "braille input mode" the user would enter in grade one
braille commands to which the devices would respond with speech.
For example consider the task of choosing music to play.
The use would enter the word "play" in braille on the screen
followed by taping the "space bar" in this case the double press of
two thumbs at the bottom of the screen to activate the command. The
system would respond by announcing the first song of the cover flow
selections. The user would then do a "N" and a double tap of the
space bar to move forward and a "B" to move backwards through the
list. When the use found the song he wanted a double tap of the
space bar would activate the choice.
The use could limit the listing by providing the play command a
name for example "play haydn" would limit the search to music by
Haydn.
Similar interfaces could be done for phone calls in the iPhone. A
user could issue a command "call bob" the unit would respond with a
list of users with bob in the name the user would then use the "N"
and "B' commands to move through the lists until he finds the one
he wants to call and then issue a double tap of the space bar to
place the call or a "info" command to read the information about
that person.
By using grade one braille we can avoid the issue of expanding
contraction and make the system easy to use even for blind users
who might not otherwise be braille users. Braille would permit the
blind user to enter information into the phone. An added benefit is
that braille entry would permit even sighted users to type quickly
into a touch device much as if they had a keyboard attached to the
device.
With the addition of Braille Apple would be offering the least
expensive and most capable braille device ont eh market today when
you consider that similar devices for the blind have costs well in
excess of $1000. In addition it would offer a fast data input
method for the sighted as well.
Well that is all for now.
Greg Kearney
Curtin University Centre for Accessible Technology
www.cucat.org
Alex,
ICE Customer Care,
AWEBSIGHT Administrator,
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"Blindness is a gift, not a disability"
http://www.vipbc.org/
