Developing Haptic Feedback to Support GUI Exploration for Individuals who are Blind

Overview

As levels of awareness surrounding accessibility increase, designers often look towards using non-visual technologies to make existing graphical interfaces (e.g. web pages) more inclusive. As existing haptic design guidance is not targeted to the specific needs of blind web users, inappropriate touchable representations of graphical objects may be developed and integrated with web interfaces, thereby reducing the quality of the browsing experience.

Our research has examined the challenges faced by individuals who are blind when accessing web and mobile interfaces. We have investigated ways to develop haptic and auditory feedback to support the non-visual web browsing process. More specifically, force-feedback, tactile feedback and auditory cues have been used to convey the structural cues which are inadequately handled via a screen reader. Research has examined both independent and collaborative browsing.

More recent work has focused on dynamic access to web pages using the Geomagic Touch device, along with ways to augment haptic interaction using 6 DOF devices.

Haptic Technologies Used to Augment the Web Browsing Process

Publications

• Wolf, F., Kuber, R. & Aviv, A.J. 2017: Perceptions of Mobile Device Authentication Mechanisms by Individuals who are Blind. In proceedings of ASSETS’17, 385-386.
• Feldman, P. & Kuber, R. 2015: Tangibly Enhancing Haptics. In Extended Abstracts of TEI'15, Stanford, USA, 563-568.
• Kuber, R., Zhu, S., Arber, Y., Norman, K. & Magnusson, C. 2014: Augmenting the Non-Visual Web Browsing Process using the Geomagic Touch Haptic Device. In SIGACCESS Newsletter, 109 (June 2014), 4-10.
• Zhu, S., Kuber, R., Tretter, M. & O'Modhrain, M.S. 2011: Identifying the Effectiveness of Using Three Different Haptic Devices for Providing Non-visual Access to the Web Interacting with Computers 23, 565-581.
• Kuber, R., Yu, W. & O'Modhrain, M.S. 2011: Evaluation of Haptic HTML Mappings Derived from a Novel Methodology. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing, 3 (4), Article 12.
• Kuber, R., Yu, W. & O'Modhrain, M.S. 2010: Tactile Web Browsing for Blind Users In proceedings of Haptic Audio Interaction Design'10 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science 6306), Copenhagen, Denmark, 75-84.
• Kuber, R., Yu, W. & McAllister, G. 2007: A Non-Visual Approach to Improving Collaboration between Blind and Sighted Internet Users. In proceedings of Human Computer Interaction International'07 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4556), 913-922.
• Kuber, R., Yu, W. & McAllister, G. 2007: Towards Developing Assistive Haptic Feedback for Visually Impaired Internet Users. In proceedings of CHI'07, San Jose, USA, 1525-1534.
• Murphy, E., Kuber, R., Strain, P., McAllister, G. & Yu, W. 2007: Developing Sounds for a Multimodal Interface: Conveying Spatial Information to Visually Impaired Web Users. In proceedings of ICAD'07, Montreal, Canada, 348-355.
• Strain, P., McAllister, G., Murphy, E., Kuber, R. & Yu, W. 2007: A Grid-Based Extension to an Assistive Multimodal Interface. In Extended Abstracts of CHI'07, San Jose, USA, 2675-2680.
• Yu, W., Kuber, R., Murphy, E., Strain, P. & McAllister, G. 2006: A Novel Multimodal Interface for Improving Visually Impaired People's Web Accessibility. Journal of Virtual Reality, 9, 2 (Jan 2006), 133-148.
• Kuber, R. 2006: Developing an Assistive Haptic Framework for Improving Non-Visual Access to the Web. In SIGACCESS Newsletter, 86 (September 2006), 16-19. (From ACM ASSETS'06 Doctoral Consortium, Portland, USA)
• Kuber, R., Yu, W., Murphy, E., Strain, P. & McAllister, G. 2005: Assistive Multimodal Interfaces for Improving Web Accessibility. In Hands on Haptics Workshop, CHI'05, Portland, USA.
• Murphy, E., McAllister, G., Strain, P., Kuber, R. & Yu, W. 2005: Audio for a Multimodal Assistive Interface. In Combining Speech and Sound in the Interface Workshop, ICAD'05, Limerick, Ireland.
• Yu, W., McAllister, G., Kuber, R., Murphy, E. & Strain, P. 2005: Improving Web Accessibility using Content-Aware Plug-ins. In Extended Abstracts of CHI'05, Portland, USA, 1893-1896.

Students

• Shaojian Zhu (Ph.D.)
• Kirk Norman (MS)
• Matthew Tretter (MS)
• Yevgeniy Arber (BS)

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