Accessible Gesture-Based User Interfaces for Effective Access to Touch Screens by Blind People
Abstract: Using touch screens presents a number of usability and
accessibility challenges for blind people. Most touch screen-based
user interfaces are optimized for visual interaction, and may be
difficult or impossible to use without vision. This talk demonstrates
the possibilities of redesigning gesture-based user interfaces to
enable blind people to use touch screens. I will present my formative
research with blind and visually impaired people, which identified
current accessibility barriers that can be resolved through the
creation of more accessible touch screens, and which revealed design
guidelines for creating more accessible touch screen user interfaces.
I will then describe several design prototypes which use new,
accessible gestures to enable blind people to use touch screens on
mobile devices, tabletop computers, and public information kiosks.
Bio: Shaun K. Kane is assistant professor of human-centered computing at
the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His research explores
the creation of new accessible input and interaction techniques for
PCs, mobile devices, and wearable computers. He received his Ph.D.
from The Information School at the University of Washington in 2011.
Shaun is a Google Lime Scholar and a recipient of Best Paper Awards
from the ACM CHI and MobileHCI conferences.