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Developing "Eyes-Free" Gadgets and Applications
The New York Times is running a story about Google engineer T. V. Raman, who lost his vision at age 14 but didn't let that stand in the way of his interest in technology. In addition to modifying a version of Google's search engine to give preference to pages that were more compliant with accessibility guidelines, Raman is now working on making cell phones easier to use without needing to look at them. "Since he cannot precisely hit a button on a touch screen, Mr. Raman created a dialer that works based on relative positions. It interprets any place where he first touches the screen as a 5, the center of a regular telephone dial pad. To dial any other number, he simply slides his finger in its direction — up and to the left for 1, down and to the right for 9, and so on. If he makes a mistake, he can erase a digit simply by shaking the phone, which can detect motion." Raman and a co-worker, Charles Chen, are also attempting to extend various phones' ability to read back scanned text to include signs that are anywhere in the phone's field of view.
Or we could admit that the current crop of iPhone inspired phones are a tremendous leap backwards. Seriously, even if you're not blind, the fact that you have to pull it out of your pocket to use is a pain in the ass. Makes me wonder what the point of wireless headsets really are if you ultimately still have to look at the phone to use it.
I'm not sure any of that other stuff is going to be helpful if companies are exercising in a pathological hatred of necessary buttons.
I wish I could remember the name of this device, but it was essentially a MP3 player with no screen; just directional buttons and voice-based navigation. It was manufactured for blind users, and it worked wonderfully. It could even read text files and accept CF cards for expansion!
I think that a cell phone with just buttons on it and braille lettering would suffice, provided that the voice navigation is really good. An added advantage is that having no screen can make for very thin and attractive devices, if aesthetics is something of a priority for them.
"Since he cannot precisely hit a button on a touch screen, Mr. Raman created a dialer that works based on relative positions. It interprets any place where he first touches the screen as a 5, the center of a regular telephone dial pad. To dial any other number, he simply slides his finger in its direction -- up and to the left for 1, down and to the right for 9..."
So simple yet so brilliant. There is so much tripe published about 'innovation' (usually Microsoft), yet I think this is the first time _I_ can use this word properly.
Well done Mr. Raman - truly brilliant.
If we're working on making a touch screen phone more accessible to the sightless, why not ditch the screen entirely and replace it with a tactile display capable of adapting to the needs of the user? This would make it possible to still have your email or even text messages right at your fingertips - literally!
Here's a prototype that I'm sure could be improved upon and made portable given the right amount of funding.
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/visualdisplay.htm
>Seriously, even if you're not blind, the fact that you have to pull it out of your pocket to use is a pain in the ass.
Yeah, because technology such as 'hands-free Bluetooth' hasn't been invented yet on your planet.
When I'm using an earwig or in the car, the phone stays in the pocket...everything, from connecting to the car to taking calls happens automatically or via voice control - what a country.
I went to a college that catered heavily to people with disabilities, primarily the deaf but also a large number of the blind. It occurred to me early on that a great deal of the tech they use is developed by people without disabilities and then tested on people with them.
I think Mr. Raman is pretty unique in the sense he's able to develop like this as a blind man. That said, I'm curious why voice recognition wasn't considered the better option?
+1, Relevant Sig
swype is intended as a replacement for an entire keyboard, and presumes that you are reasonably close to the first letter in the word.
One way to make swype work like this would be to start with a 'common' character on the keyboard and draw from there. Preferably central to the keyboard. Another alternative would be to build a 5x5 grid of letters, doubling the c and k characters into one cell of the grid, and using that as a swype board. (It would fit on a screen better as well) That layout is what the tap codes that POWs have used for communicating were based on. A 'faster' version of that would be to build the 5x5, layout where the corners could be function keys to switch between Alphabet, numbers, symbols, and perhaps smilies or commonly used words. Set the alphabet layout to start with 'E' in the middle, 'A', 'I', 'O' and 'U' in the corners around the 'E', and fill in the rest with the most commonly used 4 consanents, then the rest of the alphabet (c/k doubled, or possibly q/z) in a ring around the middle 9.
On the 'number' pad 5 is in the middle, as described, and the outside 13 unused keys could be speed dial entries, or something like that.
Those 'doubled' c/k or q/z keys would be software selected based on context. (which makes q/z seem more intuitively a better combination, not a lot of words using both letters.)
The big difference is that the swype idea is intended to speed up entry of entire words, and presumes you can see the keyboard on the screen. This input method is intended to enter individual numbers (and later by extension characters) on the assumption that you can't 'see' the input surface.
An alternative would be to use a multi-touch interface to do 'chord' key entry. From what I recall the G1 is not able to support that in software yet, and I don't know if the hardware supports multi-touch yet either. However a bluetooth based Chording keyboard would probably work very well.
You never know...