Ather Sharif, Venkatesh Potluri, Jazz Rui Xia Ang, Jacob O. Wobbrock, Jennifer Mankoff: Touchpad Mapper: Examining Information Consumption From 2D Digital Content Using Touchpads by Screen-Reader Users: ASSETS ’24 (best poster!) and W4A ’24 (open access)
Touchpads are common, but they are not very useful for people who use screen readers. We created and tested a tool called Touchpad Mapper to let Blind and visually impaired people make better use of touchpads. Touchpad Mapper lets screen-reader users use touchpads to interact with digital content like images and videos.
Touchpad mapping could be used in many apps. We built two examples:
- Users can use the touchpad to identify where things are in an image.
- Users can control a video’s progress with the touchpad, including rewinding and fast-forwarding.
We tested Touchpad Mapper with three people who use screen readers. They said they got information more quickly with our tool than with a regular keyboard.