Adaptive blind interaction technique for touchscreens

This paper describes the development of a new technique for touchscreen interaction, based on a single gesture-driven adaptive software button. The button is intended to substitute the software keyboard, and provides text-entry functionality. Input is accomplished through recognition of finger gestures that is comprised of movement towards the eight basic directions in any position. The target user group of such an interaction technique is primarily blind people who could benefit significantly. The adaptability of the button provides complementary help and follows the style of interaction in a natural way. The analysis of the results, collected from twelve blindfolded subjects, revealed an encouraging tendency. During blind manipulation on touch screen, three of the subjects achieved a maximal typing speed of about 12 wpm after five trials. This suggests that the technique developed is reliable and robust enough to be possibly applied to diverse application platforms, including personal device assistants.