CHS: Small: Collaborative Research: Improving Mobile Device Input for Users who are Blind or Low Vision

智能手机是日常生活中必不可少的一部分。但对于有视觉障碍的人来说，像写短信或浏览网页这样的基本任务可能会非常缓慢和困难。该项目的目标是开发可访问的文本输入方法，使视障人士能够以与正常人相当的速度输入文本。这个项目将设计新的算法和反馈方法，用于今天的标准文本输入方法，如敲击单个键、在键上做手势或通过语音口述。该项目旨在通过音频和触觉反馈实现更准确的输入来帮助用户避免错误，通过对文本不确定部分提供音频和视觉注释来帮助用户发现错误，并通过结合原始输入的概率信息、更正信息和错误位置的近似信息来帮助用户纠正错误。改进盲人或弱视人士的文本输入方法将使他们能够更有效地在工作和休闲中使用移动设备。因此，该项目是为视障人士实现平等的重要一步。本计画将为易接近性和人机交互文献贡献新颖的介面设计。它将推进移动设备可访问性的最新技术，首先，除了盲人之外，还研究低视力人群的文本输入可访问性。接下来，研究人员将研究和开发可访问的手势输入输入法。最后，该项目将开发无障碍语音输入法。该项目将产生设计指南、反馈方法、输入技术、识别算法、用户研究结果和软件原型，这些将指导盲人或低视力用户改进研究和商业输入系统。此外，该项目的纠错和修订过程将为每个人提高触摸屏和语音输入法的可用性和性能。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Smartphones are an essential part of everyday life. But for people with visual impairments, basic tasks like composing text messages or browsing the web can be prohibitively slow and difficult. The goal of this project is to develop accessible text entry methods that will enable people with visual impairments to enter text at rates comparable to sighted people. This project will design new algorithms and feedback methods for today's standard text entry approaches of tapping on individual keys, gesturing across keys, or dictating via speech. The project aims to help users avoid errors by enabling more accurate input via audio and tactile feedback, help users find errors by providing audio and visual annotation of uncertain portions of the text, and help users correct errors by combining the probabilistic information from the original input, the correction, and approximate information about an error's location. Improving text entry methods for people who are blind or have low vision will enable them to use their mobile devices more effectively for work and leisure. Thus, this project represents an important step to achieving equity for people with visual impairments. This project will contribute novel interface designs to the accessibility and human-computer interaction literature. It will advance the state-of-the-art in mobile device accessibility by, first, studying text entry accessibility for low vision in addition to blind people. Next, the researchers will study and develop accessible gesture typing input methods. Finally, the project will develop accessible speech input methods. This project will produce design guidelines, feedback methods, input techniques, recognition algorithms, user study results, and software prototypes that will guide improvements to research and commercial input systems for users who are blind or low-vision. Further, the project's work on the error correction and revision process will improve the usability and performance of touchscreen and speech input methods for everyone.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.