Rotate-and-Press: A Non-visual Alternative to Point-and-Click?

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Assistive Technology
• Accessibility Research

Background:

• Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) primarily cater to sighted users, posing challenges for blind individuals relying on screen readers and keyboard-only navigation.
• Traditional point-and-click interactions are difficult for screen-reader users, hindering efficient access to application commands and features.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effectiveness of a 'rotate-and-press' input modality as a non-visual substitute for mouse interaction.
• To design and develop bTunes, an add-on for Microsoft Word, enabling blind screen-reader users to interact with applications using a Dial input device.

Main Methods:

• Developed bTunes, an add-on that customizes a Dial input device for Microsoft Word.
• Conducted a user study with 15 blind participants to evaluate bTunes' performance in word processing tasks.
• Assessed task completion time, number of user actions, and usability using the System Usability Scale (SUS).

Main Results:

• bTunes significantly reduced task completion time by 65.1% and the number of user actions by 36.09% for representative word processing tasks.
• Participants reported no issues switching between keyboard and Dial input modalities.
• bTunes achieved a high average usability rating of 84.66 on the SUS.

Conclusions:

• The 'rotate-and-press' modality, implemented through bTunes, offers an effective non-visual alternative to mouse interaction for blind screen-reader users.
• bTunes enhances accessibility and efficiency, allowing blind users to benefit from dual-modality interaction similar to sighted users.
• The system demonstrates high usability and seamless integration with existing assistive technologies.