SBraille: A new braille input method for mobile devices

Abstract

There are not many accessibility technologies to input braille in the mobile devices for the visually impaired. We have studied three conventional methods to input braille in mobile devices and, as a result of our study, we propose SBraille, a new braille input method using swiping gesture for mobile devices. In order to input a 6-dot Braille letter using SBraille, six dots are divided into three parts with two dots. Each part can be one of the patterns: ‘●○’, ‘○●’, ‘●●’, and ‘○○’. The first two patterns can be represented by tapping left side and right side, respectively. The last two patterns by swiping upward and swiping downward, respectively. The most important advantage of the SBraille method is that the visually impaired can input braille with only one hand, so that they can use the other hand for another use, e.g., holding the cane. Other advantages of SBraille and its comparative analysis with other braille input methods (Braille Keyboard, ThaiBraille, and MBraille) are also explained in the paper.