Braille text entry on smartwatches

Abstract

Smartwatches are gaining popularity on market with a set of features comparable to smartphones in a wearable device. This novice technology brings new interaction paradigms and challenges for blind users, who have difficulties dealing with touchscreens. Among a variety of tasks that must be studied, text entry is analyzed, considering that current existing solutions may be unsatisfactory (as voice input) or even unfeasible (as working with tiny QWERTY keyboards) for a blind user. More specifically, this paper presents a study on possible solutions for composing a Braille cell on smartwatches. Five prototypes were developed and different feedback features were proposed. These are confronted with seven specialists on an evaluation study that results in a qualitative analysis of which strategies can be more useful for blind users in a Braille text entry.