Drawing for Blind Learners: Assistive Technology for Graphical Design

Abstract

One of the main problems faced by blind learners is a lack of drawing technologies that support images and diagram drawing without the help of a sighted support worker. Even though some technologies have been experimented with in the past, blind learners have not been keen on tactile drawing due to: the difficulty of the drawing task, the length of time taken to complete a simple task, and the inefficiency of the drawing experience. This paper presents a set of grammar tools that can be used by blind people to find spatial orientation, as well as knowledge and representation of the interactive drawing environment, to improve the understanding of a concept or a subject matter. The grammar can be adopted and personalised in education and learning when presenting technical diagrams. The grammar enables users to present graphics by mapping the cognitive visualisation of blind people into spatial information on a computer screen. This technique promotes an interactive and easy drawing environment to build objects, associations, and layout information by zooming, navigation, and grouping. It will lead to future possibilities such as 3D world modelling, printing, and multisensory integration of inputs and output methods.

Disconnected from Reality: Do the core concepts of the metaverse exclude disabled individuals?

“…At the time, these solutions were hampered by technological gaps, such as a lack of suitable language transformers, and 'Moore's Law' governing CPU clock speed increases required by CPU intensive designs. However, we believe nonetheless that an opportunity for a storytelling device, perhaps using a large language model (such as a generative language model like GPT3) alongside visualization (such as [32]) and other techniques (for example, novel research findings such as knowledge about room size efficacy potential [38]), these that have proven their efficacy in other AAT adaptations could be combined to facilitate 'storytelling', which in our case means translating the ambient elements of a metaverse into something that facilitates access to disabled individuals. This could serve to enhance the self-efficacy of their interactions with said metaverse.…”

Screen navigation system for visually impaired people

“…We proposed a compass-based navigation method that enables the screen navigation through formal language commands (Ohene-Djan and Fernando, 2016). A compass on the interface takes the user to the intended location, where the screen is divided in to 3*3 memorable locations such as north, south, east, west, north-west, north-east southeast, and south-west.…”