Internet surfing for the blind: a prototype

Loo, Alfred Wai-Sing; Lu, Ming Te; Bloor, Chris

doi:10.1108/02640470310509135

Cited by 9 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…A special software package -VocalSurf (Loo et al, 2003) -originally designed by the author to assist the visually impaired in comprehending web page content through human speech, can also help young children to surf the Internet. This package can read words on web pages and produce human speech accordingly.…”

Section: Software Package Used For the Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further information on this package can be found in the author's previous paper (Loo et al, 2003). In addition to authorizing the 'Hong Kong Blind Union' to distribute the software package to its members, the package has been made available on the website of Hong Kong Education City (http://resources.hkedcity.net/resource_detail.php?rid¼ 955988736).…”

Section: Software Package Used For the Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, it is not yet capable of detecting the required alternations in pronunciation due to intonation, nor is there an option to vary output sounds based on the speaker's sex and age. As the speech was recorded by a blind man in our previous project (Loo et al, 2003), the intonation may not arouse kindergarten children's interest in engaging with the webbrowsing activity.…”

Section: Further Improvementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Internet surfing for kindergarten children

Loo

2012

Gifted Education International

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The Internet is an effective learning tool for gifted children because it allows them to independently select the areas in which they have talent. The Internet also enables children to discover and maximize their potential. However, younger children might not have a large enough vocabulary to surf the Internet, even if they are gifted. For example, children who are creatively gifted might not have exceptional reading ability. To solve this problem, a special web browser was used to generate human speech according to the words that appeared on the web pages displayed. Experiments involving about 100 kindergarteners were conducted to assess the effectiveness of our approach. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of this web browser in enabling kindergarten children aged 3–6 years old to surf the Internet.

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Section: Software Package Used For the Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Software Package Used For the Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Further Improvementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Internet surfing for kindergarten children

Loo

2012

Gifted Education International

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“…Alfred proposed the web prototype for the blind which presented a new human-computer interaction model and an associated computer system for visually impaired people so that they can browse the World Wide web via internet (Loo et al, 2003). Craven and Booth found that, while the aims of the projects differed, the methods adopted were similar including observation, talk aloud protocols, questionnaires, and focus groups.…”

Section: Usability Test Of Library For the Blindmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ubiquitous library usability test for the improvement of information access for the blind

Kwak

Bae²

2009

The Electronic Library

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PurposeUsability tests to improve information accessibility for the blind have rarely been carried out. Recently, the LG Digital Talking Book (LG DTB) Library has developed a ubiquitous service, which provides the blind with library service anytime, anywhere, using mobile phones with the automated library access procedure. The main purpose of this paper is to draw up a better plan to improve information accessibility for the blind through the usability test of the service being made by the LG DTB Library.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey and in‐depth interviews are conducted among the blind, and usage statistics analysis of the Digital Talking Book Library services and web server log analysis are carried out together for the usability test.FindingsThe blind respondents answer that late updates of new publications, unbalanced subject areas, and lack of educational contents are the most serious problems in reality. The paper also showed that handy‐to‐carry information terminals like mobile phones are very much favored by the blind.Originality/valueThis paper has a unique value in that the real effect and usability of the ubiquitous library service for the blind is investigated for the first time.

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“…In order to facilitate visually impaired users, the screen readers are used in order to reduce their searching time. To facilitate visually impaired users in searching information on internet by developing search engine facility, a desktop application has been introduced which provides speech recognizer and speech synthesizer technology by using audio facility [1]. The main objectives of this research work are:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Audible Search Engine for Visually Impaired Users: A Prototype Developed using Assistive Technology

Masood¹,

Rehman²,

Anjum³

et al. 2015

IJCA

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The objective of the research work was to create an Audible Search Engine for Visually Impaired Users, in order to improve their accessibility to find their desired results. In order to fulfill the desired objective, the preliminary study was performed, based on the observation conducted with the blinds that used assistive technology to navigate the Web. For better Speech Recognition, Web Crawler and Speech Synthesizer technologies have been adopted. The designed system detects user"s speech and then converts speech into text. Moreover, Web Crawler makes relevant links and titles available in a short span. Hence, the Speech Synthesizer read, enable the results converted into an audio format which are understandable by visually impaired users. The research work focuses on easier, efficient and less frustrating access for sightless individuals.

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Internet surfing for the blind: a prototype

Cited by 9 publications

References 8 publications

Internet surfing for kindergarten children

Internet surfing for kindergarten children

Ubiquitous library usability test for the improvement of information access for the blind

An Audible Search Engine for Visually Impaired Users: A Prototype Developed using Assistive Technology

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