Touchtalk: Enhancing Messaging in Smartphones for Visually Impaired

Messaging applications have become integral to modern communication, enabling people to connect and share information. Despite efforts to design gadgets for visually impaired (VI) individuals, existing interfaces remain inaccessible. This research paper is focused on the hurdles that VI users experience while transitioning to devices with smooth screens for basic messaging tasks. An extensive review was conducted by authors for 17 papers covering various keyboard layouts and usability features in smartphones for messaging applications. The authors also conducted a preliminary study with 18 participants aged 12–48 to understand their pain points and needs. The paper reports implementing a 9-key-based keyboard layout in a messaging application. The layout is similar to the multi-tap system used on numeric keypads of feature phones, which had several letters associated with each number key. Additionally, the proposal includes a phonic instruction to make it easier for visually impaired individuals to learn and use this keyboard layout. The authors have created the application and are currently in the initial stage of conducting user testing. They aim to assess the accuracy of the layout in the near future. Thus, the authors aim to reduce cognitive effort, simplify the learning process, and improve the overall texting experience for users with visual impairment via their application - Touchtalk.