First Results from Interactive Tactile Interface Project

A new tactile device will allow the widespread use of graphical interfaces among visually-impaired people. The tactile graphical display will open up new avenues of employment, communication and personal expression

“Single line devices are fine for simple text, but what if you want to look at a spreadsheet? For that you need a full-screen display, which can also produce text,” said Dr Sami Ahmed, managing director of Smart Technology Group the scientific coordinator of the Interactive Tactile Interface (ITACTI) project, backed by funding from the European Commission’s IST program. Smart also was responsible for design and manufacture of the new display unit.

Current Braille displays generally show one line at a time using electro-magnetic or piezo-electrical forces to raise and lower the dots that make up Braille letters. This system causes inconvenience for the reader as they have to refer back to something they have just read. The new device has a display with electro-rheological fluids that enable users to read multi-line displays. The device can also display graphical elements like icons, bar charts and presentations.

Ahmed believes that the ITACTI device could provide new job opportunities for visually-impaired people and may help them to work in call centers where full screens of data need to be scanned quickly for responding to queries. Conceivably the device could create whole new fields for visually-impaired people. The widespread use the system could result in the emergence of new patterns to represent graphical elements.

The response to the new device is a positive one. “Users loved it and it opened up a whole new world. This is because the Royal National Institute of the Blind in the UK was a member of the consortium. They told us what users needed,” says Ahmed.

“Right now we are actively seeking ways to begin commercial production. For that to happen, we first need to produce a pre-production run and extend testing on the device. We hope to raise the investment necessary to tackle that stage and move to production quickly,” ends Ahmed.

Source: ITACTI