A 3D sound hypermedial system for the blind

Abstract

It has been said that quite often a hypermedial application running over a GUI is somehow inappropriate or unusable. This is the case for end-users with little or no visual capabilities. In this paper we present a conversational metaphor to try to ameliorate this problem. We propose a framework in which the interaction is rendered using 3D sound. Several voices used as media to convey information are placed in the space through this technology. By using a glove the user controls the system manipulating a special version of 3D auditory icons, called audicons. Moreover, we introduce a technique called grab-and-drop, equivalent to the visual drag-and-drop. We show that this framework permits the building and adaptation of current hypermedia interfaces in a way that can be used without visual cues. Keywords: Drag-and-drop, 3D sound, aids for the visually-impaired, auditory I/O, virtual reality, metaphor, hypermedia 1. INTRODUCTION It is widely known that hypermedial applications...