Usability evaluation of a web system for spatially oriented audio descriptions of images addressed to visually impaired people

Abstract

This paper describes a web system designed to provide spatially oriented audio descriptions of an image for visually impaired users. The system uses a hardware-independent platform of the technique of multimodal presentation of images. Visually impaired users interact with an image displayed on the screen while moving the cursor – with a mouse or a tablet (pen or finger touch) – and listening to the audio description of previously marked areas within the image. The paper also describes the usability evaluation performed with five participants and its main results. Generally, the five participants accomplished the usability test tasks and could better understand the image displayed. The paper also describes the main findings and discusses some implications for design, suggesting some improvements.