When drawing, one of the most important operations is point location and relocation. One must be able to conceptually relate one point to the whole image or another point in the image. For visually impaired users, some guideline or frame of reference is needed. This same frame of reference must also offer crucial drawing mechanisms (e.g., feedback to specify the angle of a line).
When sighted persons draw, they continually adjust their input based on visual feedback, an essential part of the drawing process. Existing drawing tools for blind users give inadequate contextual feedback on the state of the drawing, leaving blind users unable to comprehend and successfully produce graphical information. In animation, feedback becomes even more crucial. Although visually impaired people are able to understand the meaning of what is portrayed in an animation, today there is also no accessible method for them to create animation.
My dissertation describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of a dynamic drawing and animation tool for the blind, call the Integrated Communication 2 Draw (IC2D), that overcomes these problems and combines a simple grid-based navigational interface, keyboard input, and auditory feedback in a 2D graphics environment.
My advisor is Professor James Landay. I am a member of the Group for User Interface Research.
I graduated from UC Berkeley in 1990 with a B.A. in Computer Science. I received my masters in 1992 in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. I joined the workforce till 1996, when I started pursuing my Ph.D.
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