Vizlens: a Robust and Interactive Screen Reader for Interfaces in The
VizLens: A Robust and Interactive Screen Reader for Interfaces in the Real World Anhong Guo1, Xiang ‘Anthony’ Chen1, Haoran Qi2, Samuel White1, Suman Ghosh1, Chieko Asakawa3, Jeffrey P. Bigham1 1Human-Computer Interaction Institute, 2Mechanical Engineering Department, 3Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 fanhongg, xiangche, chiekoa, jbighamg @cs.cmu.edu, fhaoranq, samw, sumangg @andrew.cmu.edu ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION The world is full of physical interfaces that are inaccessible The world is full of inaccessible physical interfaces. Mi to blind people, from microwaves and information kiosks to crowaves, toasters and coffee machines help us prepare food; thermostats and checkout terminals. Blind people cannot in printers, fax machines, and copiers help us work; and check dependently use such devices without at least first learning out terminals, public kiosks, and remote controls help us live their layout, and usually only after labeling them with sighted our lives. Despite their importance, few are self-voicing or assistance. We introduce VizLens —an accessible mobile ap have tactile labels. As a result, blind people cannot easily use plication and supporting backend that can robustly and inter them. Generally, blind people rely on sighted assistance ei actively help blind people use nearly any interface they en ther to use the interface or to label it with tactile markings. counter. VizLens users capture a photo of an inaccessible Tactile markings often cannot be added to interfaces on pub interface and send it to multiple crowd workers, who work lic devices, such as those in an office kitchenette or check in parallel to quickly label and describe elements of the inter out kiosk at the grocery store, and static labels cannot make face to make subsequent computer vision easier.
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