Exploring the Effectiveness of Electrotactile Feedback for Data Visualization for Blind and Visually Impaired Users

Blind and visually impaired individuals use tactile graphics to interpret any type of image, figure, or graph. However, the production of these materials is resource exhaustive—taking a lot of time, quality assurance, and money. This research project uses recent advancements in electrotactile feedback to provide an accurate and timely approach to data visualizations of users who are blind or visually impaired. For this, we developed Electromouse, a mouse-based prototype where users can navigate the screen and feel an electrotactile sensation every time the cursor hits a significant line on the graphic presented on the screen. We performed an early exploration study with five blind adults to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of the prototype. Overall, participants were excited for this new method, but had suggestions for improvement related to the form factor, additional graphical information, and multimodal notification.