AUDIO-HAPTIC INTERNET BROWSER AND ASSOCIATED TOOLS FOR BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED COMPUTER USERS                                                 

Patrick Roth     , Lori Stefano Petrucci       , Andr Assimacopoulos         , and Thierry Pun      
Computer Vision Group, Computer Science Department, University of Geneva                         
24, rue du Gnral Dufour, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland                               
Patrick.Roth@cui.unige.ch, http://cuiwww.unige.ch/~vision                              
UCBA/SZB - Swiss Central Union of and for the Blind, and                              
ABA - Association pour le Bien des Aveugles                                   
34, place du Bourg-de-Four, CH-1204 Geneva, Switzerland                                


ABSTRACT                                                                                  
In the Internet world, the widespread use of graphical     
user interfaces (GUIs) increasingly bars visually          
handicapped people from accessing digital                  
information. In this context our project aims at           
providing sight handicapped people with alternative        
access modalities to various types of GUIs and graphic    
intensive programs, in order for instance to facilitate   
usage of Web services. We describe in this paper AB-Web [1], 
a 3D-audio Web browser that allows blind         
computer users to explore Web pages, fill in forms,       
etc., using a 3D sonic rendering. We also present         
WebSound [2], a generic tool that permits to associate    
with each HTML tag a given sonic object (earcon or        
auditory icon). Finally, we describe a series of          
associated programs composed of the family of sonic       
games From Dots to Shapes [3], as well as of IDEA ,       
a tool that lets users comprehend simple drawings, as     
well as to create graphics.                               


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