Dissertation Concept Idea

The aim of the dissertation

The motivation behind the dissertation “Communicating Through Touch” is to create a way of representing digital information through a physical form. The user should be able to receive the digital information (output) through a physical form using the sense of touch and be able to alter the digital information through the same physical form (input). The aim is to create a Tangible User Interface (TUI) with the research area studying the blind and the visually impaired.

The Concept – what is it?

The main conceptual idea for creating a TUI is to use a system that uses pins in an array to move up and down on a tablet to represent textual information or possibly images that would be on the computer screen. The user should be able to receive the information through touch and communicate back to the computer through touch using the tablet. The concept of this is shown below in Figure 1.

Figure 1
Dissertation Concept

Some other ideas for the display are to create an application to teach Braille using the display. The display could also have a keyboard or widgets for users. These would be ideas to consider if the dissertation was developed at a later stage.

Why is this important?

The ever increasing amount of information that we receive on a daily basis is mainly communicated digitally through audio and visual media. Digital media for the blind and visually impaired is mainly dominated by auditory communication. This can lead to a large amount of people not reading but being feed information through audio. With large support from audio screen readers it can be seen that there is a higher potential of illiteracy. The dissertation would aim to increase accessibility for the blind and visually impaired to digital information. According to the Braille institute in America only 12 percent of 55,000 legally blind children in the United States can read Braille. (Braille Institute of America 2009) Increasing accessibility to digital information through a TUI would encourage and support the learning of Braille. Another aspect is users would have more options to suit specific preferences. When Roberts was comparing text to speech systems to refreshable Braille her found that “many users prefer the precision and the reading experience of touch-based Braille systems.” (2000, p.1) Not only is the dissertation important to explore from the point of view of the blind and visually impaired, it is important to develop TUIs for all. Pasquero claims there is a ‘growing demand for tools that allow communication through touch’ in such areas as the entertainment industry, the medical world, surgery training, the research world and many more. (2006 p.2) An advantage of full sized (of a computer screen) tactile interfaces over screen readers is to give the user an overall orientation of the spatial reasoning in relation to the layout of text and features on a user interface. Once a user has a spatial understanding of the layout of a display it is easier to navigate from one place to another, rather than searching using a mouse, with little knowledge of the layout.

Who is going to use it?

The system “Communicating through touch” is aimed at the blind and visually impaired but the final design may be suitable for all to use as the nature of research and development could lead to unknown outcomes.

Where will it be used?

The system would be used in many different environments. Mainly aimed to be used for general purposes of a computer, in the home, at work, in schools and ideally everywhere a computer would currently be used. It might be impractical and unnecessary to think this could be everywhere computers are at the moment so through examining users needs and requirements we would gain a better understanding of where it would be used.

When would it be used?

Similar to where the system would be used, the system would be needed when people need to use their computer. Screen readers communicate information at an acceptable level for people to want to use them so it isn’t necessary for the system to be needed all the time. The system wouldn’t be aimed at replacing screen reader but giving users another option of how to interact with digital media, creating more accessibility for a greater number of people depending of their preferences.

How does it work?

The system would access the HTML code for a website and process this to include features such as link, main content, headings and so on. This would then be converted to a language to communicate to the display what to do. The pins would then need to move mechanically to represent the digital information physically. The user feels the display to receive the information and can press on the display to select something such as a link. The display may have audio or a tactile indication that they have selected something. The display recognizes the input, converts the input to a suitable language and then communicates the selection to the website. The website changes and the process would start again. Figure 2 shows a diagram of this cycle.

Figure 2
Cycle of using the system