Touch, sound, blind users, multimodal interaction, visualisation, virtual reality, haptics. The Problem One of the main deprivations caused by blindness is the problem of access to information. There are currently only limited methods for presenting information non-visually and these do not provide an equivalent speed and ease of use to their graphical counterparts. This means it is impossible for blind people to use visualisation techniques, so depriving them further. Current techniques for displaying information non-visually rely mainly on synthetic speech and Braille.
Users hear a line of digits read out or, if they read Braille, feel a row of digits.
Consider a sighted person reading a matrix of numbers. For example, there may be larger numbers at the bottom right or top left. A blind person would be unable to capitalise on these patterns in the data. A typical line graph. Presenting this in synthetic speech or Braille is extremely difficult.