POINTING KEYBOARD AND TACTILE FEEDBACK SYSTEM FOR BLIND COMPUTER ACCESS

THE GOAL OF THIS EFFORT IS A REFRESHABLE "BRAILLE" SYSTEM TO MAKE SCREEN AND PAGE FORMATTED INFORMATION ACCESSIBLE TO BLIND COMPUTER USERS. MECHANICAL TACTILE STIMULI ARE PRESENTED TO INDIVIDUAL FINGERS, REPRESENTING DOTS OF BRAILLE-CODED CHARACTERS, SO THAT READING IS THE INVERSE OF WRITING WITH A BRAILLE KEYBOARD. THE KEYBOARD, NORMALLY AN INPUT DEVICE, IS ENHANCED TO SERVE BOTH INPUT AND OUTPUT FUNCTIONS. POINTING AND PAGE LOCATION INFORMATION IS PROVIDED BY MOVING THE BRAILLE KEYBOARD IN X AND Y DIRECTIONS SO THAT ROWS AND COLUMNS OF TEXT ARE ACCESSED UTILIZING THE SAME ARM MOTIONS EMPLOYED IN READING EMBOSSED PAPER BRAILLE. KEYBOARD MOTION TRANSLATES A CURSOR AND THE PROPRIOCEPTIVE SENSE ENABLES THE USER TO SENSE MOVEMENT FROM PLACE TO PLACE OVER A VIRTUAL PAGE. WE WILL EXPLORE AN ALTERNATE METHOD IN WHICH A THUMB-OPERATED DEVICE IS USED TO SIMULATEMOTION WITHIN ROWS AND COLUMNS. A HARDWARE DESIGN COMBINING ROW AND COLUMN SCANNING WITH EIGHT-FINGER TACTILE STIMULATION WILL BE INTEGRATED WITH A BRAILLE KEYBOARD FOR INPUT AND OUTPUT OF TEXTUAL INFORMATION TO AND FROM A HOST COMPUTER. READING SPEED AND COMPREHENSION OF PAGE-FORMAT INFORMATION USING THIS METHOD WILL BE MEASURED, AS WELL AS PERFORMANCE ON OTHER BENCH MARK TASKS SUCH AS FINDING LINES IN A SPREADSHEET OR FINDING MISPELLED WORDS IN A WORDPROCESSOR.