Camera mode concept to support blind photography, a mobile application (via UCSC.edu)
Photographs serve more than just a visual representation of a moment in space and time and photography is an activity that should be enjoyed by all, even if eyesight is unreliable. This is what 54 visually impaired people told students at the University of California at Santa Cruz. A team being led by Ph.D. student Dustin Adams, has begun development of an app that can turn a smartphone into a photo taking aid.
The individuals that shared their opinions in the survey ranged in age from 18 to 78 and from moderate to complete visual impairment. Their concerns and troubles handling cameras and snapping pics provided the foundation for solutions that are being implemented into the phone application. These problems were primarily concerned with picture taking, picture organizing, editing, and picture sharing. The team has finished their first iPhone app that will be demonstrated and described in detail at the Pervasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference, in Greece, later this month.
Aiming the camera can present many problems that the app is designed to tackle. The first feature to help ensure a good picture is audio communication between the app and the user. The app uses the iPhone’s face recognition feature and can tell the user how many faces are in focus to ensure everyone in frame is captured correctly. Other audio cues will help focus on objects that are not people. It also seems like the group has added notification for when there is too much glare or sunlight obstructing the frame. Looking for buttons to press is avoided by the use of various swipe gestures. Taking pictures is done with a single-finger upward swipe.
Organizing volumes of pictures can also be a difficult task for visually impaired. For this reason, the app has a feature that records 30 second of ambient audio when the camera is activated. A double tap on the screen restarts this ambient recording. This recording can help the photographer remember the feel and what was going on in the photo’s environment. An option to record an actual memo after every picture taken is also available. Each picture is tagged with important data like the time, date, and GPS info like what city the photo was taken in. One option is to create folders based on this GPS information to keep photo shoots together but the user also has the option to create their own folders at will.
Specific details will come out in Greece, but there is reason to believe the group will be integrating a JAWs-like feature to picture editing as well. Features like these could also help sort through photos to separate the blurry ones from the good shots.
Of course, taking pictures in today’s world is only part of the fun. Sharing pictures online on websites like facebook or through email can also present challenges for visually impaired and can even be risky if the wrong pictures end up online. It is not clear how exactly the UC Santa Cruz team will resolve these issues but they will likely use audio communication along with the sorting system to ensure ease of use and zero mishaps.
The team recognizes that there is a difference between being partially blind and completely blind. They hope their research will allow them to create apps that accommodate for people suffering from different ranges of blindness. The team also hopes their app will allow and encourage visually impaired people to log their lives with their smartphone.
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