BrailleTouch is an eyes-free text entry application for multi-point touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. It uses the
chorded system of braille to input 63 possible characters into the device. Space, backspace, and enter are swipe gestures. It provides voice,
click, or silent feedback. On Android, it can perform any text entry task. On iOS, it is a stand alone application that does not input text to
the phone. Apple does not open iOS to allow users to change the keyboard. It auto-rotates so users do not need to worry about the direction of
the device when holding it. It is and will always be free for any platform. Currently, it
only supports English, but braille exists for all major languages.
When will BrailleTouch be available?
We have received an overwhelmingly positive response from all over the world! Our plan is to release a free app later this year. However, in
response to the current interest, we are looking at ways to get a release out sooner. We will post when we have an app available for testing or release.
Frey, B., Rosier, K., Southern, C., Romero, M., "From Texting
App to Braille Literacy." Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems, Extended Abstracts, ACM CHI 2012. Austin, USA: May 2012.
(Accepted - 6-page paper) pdf.
Romero, M., Frey, B., Southern, C., Abowd, G.,
"BrailleTouch: Designing a Mobile Eyes-Free Soft Keyboard."
MobileHCI 2011, Design Competition. Stockholm, August 2011.
pdf and
poster
Frey, B., Southern, C., Romero, M.,
"BrailleTouch: Mobile Texting for the Visually Impaired."
Proceedings of Human-Computer Interaction International,
HCII. Orlando: July 2011.
pdf