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Hesham Kamel (left) is developing a sophisticated computer
drawing animation tool for the visually impaired as part
of his doctoral thesis with Professor James Landay (right).
Photo: Noah Berger
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Blind doctoral student
creates computer tools for the visually impaired
By Sarah Yang
Frustrated by the lack of drawing and animation tools for the
visually impaired, electrical engineering and computer sciences
doctoral student Hesham Kamel is developing a computer-drawing
program that helps visually impaired users create and see images
on the computer screen.
Kamel, who lost his sight 17 years ago in a surgical accident,
plans to refine his software prototype – integrated Communication
2 Draw, or IC2D – beyond its research state into a commercially
viable product.
"There’s nothing else out there that can help me create
and view graphics," says Kamel. "With the IC2D, blind
people can use screen readers paired with voice synthesizers to
literally hear text on the computer screen." Often asked
why blind people would need to draw something they couldn’t
see, Kamel says, "There are many people out there who can’t
understand that blind people have imaginations, just as sighted
people do. For me, it’s all about independence."
Kamel is working with computer sciences professor James Landay,
his thesis advisor, to develop this unusual software. "Hesham’s
IC2D software is a great start in fulfilling a demand by the visually
impaired to create and communicate visual information with both
blind and sighted people," says Landay. "It has been
amazing to see some of the drawings that Hesham’s blind
research participants have created. These are drawings they never
could have made before."
The program works by dividing the computer screen into a 3-by-3
grid numbered like a telephone keypad. As the cursor moves from
square to square, audio feedback – both voice and non-voice
– signals location points back to the user. To create additional
"points" for more detailed images, each of the nine
cells on the grid can be repeatedly divided for a total of 729
cells. Commands, shapes, lines, and color are all controlled using
a telephone keypad arrangement. Using the intuitive keypad layout
as the basis for the interface speeds up navigation, creating
a better experience for the user, says Kamel.
"To help blind users see what I draw, I developed a technique
to give the components of the picture a meaningful label,"
he adds. A picture of a car, for example, can include a label
for the rear passenger wheel, which may include labels for a silver
hubcap and the black rubber tread. Hearing the labels with reference
to the grid allows blind people to better conceptualize the full
image.
"When you look at technology, the trend is for things to
get smaller, faster, and cheaper," says Kamel. "That
hasn’t been true for technology for the blind. The devices
we need for our computers, like a 50-pound Braille printer, are
large, expensive, or both." Kamel’s IC2D is portable
and compatible with any computer screen reader for the blind.
"More than anything," says Kamel, "I want to change
the way people think when they develop technology for the visually
impaired."
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