Open source technologies for visually impaired people

Abstract

We describe two open source applications which we have experienced as very useful aids for the integration of people suffering from visual impairments, from hypovision to actual blindness. The first application is based on speech synthesis and has been experienced by disabled university students. The second experience is oriented to schoolchildren with low residual vision, and it provides their educators and parents with easy to use tools for image manipulation, especially designed for exploiting residual visual abilities. © 2007 International Federation for Information Processing.