A Study of Input and Scrolling Methods for Tactile Graphics Editors Available for Visually Impaired People

When sighted people, for example, study mathematics and physics, they need not only verbal information, but also non-verbal information such as graphs, pictures and so on. Blind people are able to receive non-verbal information if the information is expressed by tactile graphics, however, it is quite difficult for the blind to draw figures by themselves. Using refreshable braille displays is one of the possible methods when blind people draw figures by themselves. So, we discuss assistive systems with a refreshable braille display for blind people to draw figures by themselves. In this paper, we introduce two input methods of elementary plane shapes, which is called object input methods. Furthermore, two scrolling methods are also introduced, which are needed to show the drawing area where the user wants to touch. This paper describes experiments with blind participants, in these experiments, we have tested which object input method is efficient for blind users, and which scrolling method is easy to use. The results of the experiments are shown in this paper.