Several audio games have been developed for visually impaired players to enjoy only by using audio information. However, sighted persons find it challenging to play these games because they mainly use visual information. To bridge the gap between them, developing games that appropriately present multisensory modalities: To devise an auditory and tactile presentation method that allows the sighted to manipulate and identify features, enabling them to play without visual information. Therefore, we develop an inclusive game that both sighted and visually impaired people can play. Here, we developed a real-time sensory substitution method using auditory and tactile senses, including a tactile game controller (TactCon). Then, we implemented the method in a 2D side-scrolling action game and evaluated the game by either sighted or visually impaired people at a two-month exhibition: not a controlled experiment. Results show that immediate auditory and tactile presentation can be important for visually impaired and sighted gamers to play action games requiring real-time response. Furthermore, we considered how the presentation of moving objects can be understood in an inclusive action game.

Blind people use screen readers (SRs) to manipulate their personal computers. Due to the various voices and sounds handled by the screen reader, the more application windows open, the heavier the cognitive burden it feels, and the lower its performance becomes. In this paper, we propose a support scheme that enables SR users with blindness to effectively control multiple windows. As a proof-of-concept system, we propose a set of shortcut key buttons that provide direct jumps to the targeted window through a simple action. According to the evaluation results, our shortcut key buttons had positive effects on reducing the subjective workload and the number of keystrokes.

Though some games for visually impaired persons have been developed, most of games that use only auditory information present challenges for sighted persons. Moreover, unfortunately, it is still difficult for visually impaired persons to play the same game with sighted persons and for sighted and visually impaired persons to share a common subject. Thus, we developed a barrier-free game that both sighted and visually impaired persons can play using their dominant senses including visual, auditory and tactile senses.

With the arrival of the age of integrated education, there is a need to develop a method to automatically transmit necessary two-dimensional information in real time to students with visual impairments. Therefore, this essay proposes a graphic display method that will allow the visually impaired to quickly and accurately understand two-dimensional information such as charts and graphs shown on a tactile display. A practical device using an off-the-rack tactile display and an inexpensive haptic presentation device was developed and evaluated to determine whether it would be effective in helping the visually impaired to understand two-dimensional information. As a result, it was proven that tactile and haptic guidance methods are significantly more effective than traditional voice guidance and presentation of uneven surfaces, and it is apparently possible to automatically present and share the necessary two-dimensional information.

The role of human sight becomes increasingly important as information technology progresses. Presentations based on multimedia help to explain many kinds of situations. However, this form of communication, so convenient for persons gifted with sight, is inaccessible to the visually impaired. Thus, persons lacking eyesight are eager for a method that can provide them with access to progress in technology. In education, the presentation of lecture materials involves a lecture focused on oral explanation with the use of compensating information through information technology, however, the lecturer is unable to confirm which part of the materials the students are accessing, and conversely it is not easy to direct the students to access the part on which the lecturer is currently focusing. In this paper, we propose terminal operation learning software which provides more effective to easy access many console messages under inclusive education system.

Through the development of information technology in recent years, it is now common for lectures to involve education using PowerPoint materials and similar. Likewise, in education for the visually impaired, the presentation of lecture materials involves a lecture focused on oral explanation with the use of compensating information through information technology; however, the lecturer is unable to confirm which part of the materials the students are accessing, and conversely it is not easy to direct the students to access the part on which the lecturer is currently focusing. Here, in this paper, I present an experimental software through which lecture materials are distributed to students via a TCP/IP network, in which the lecturer can instruct the students which items to focus on and the students can immediately confirm these through screen readers.

Accessibility information can allow disabled people to identify suitable pathways to reach their destinations, but it is difficult to obtain new accessible pathway information rapidly because of limited local information disclosure. Thus, it is necessary to develop a comprehensive system that acquires barrier-free information from various sources and makes that information available in an intuitive form. In this study, we aimed to develop a social platform to obtain and present appropriate information depending on the user's situation, such as the user's disabilities and location, and to share the barrier-free information provided by other users.

The touch screens of recent years are used in variety of purposes, since it can implement a switch to the software that can control easily and cheaply as well as present visual images at the same time. Traditional switch had physical shape and tactile feel, which made it possible to find and operate by touch, but with touch screen type switch, the texture would be uniform all over like the surface of a glass, so in order to operate the switch, one has to gaze at the image. This presents a huge obstacle to visually impaired or aged persons who cannot easily access visual information. On the other hand, the technology to bring about virtual reality with haptic feedback is beginning to be noticed, and touch screens with haptic feedback functions are gradually becoming viable. So in this paper, based on the assumption that in the coming days securing accessibility will be achieved by using haptic perception, human's virtual haptic information differentiation accuracy and memory will be examined, using touch screens with haptic feedback function. The main focus will be on the result of fundamental study carried out with visually impaired persons.

Deaf blind and hearing impaired persons cannot perceive their own voice pitch and thus find it difficult to control. While singing, the voice pitch needs to be controlled to maintain a stable tone. Hence, a voice pitch control system was developed to assist such persons in singing. In a previous study, two deaf blind subjects using this system could control their voice pitch with comparable accuracy as hearing children while singing "Frog Round," even though successive notes in the song' melody were adjacent in the musical scale. Herein, the pitch control accuracy is investigated for "Frog Round," and song in which successive notes are separated by wider intervals in the musical scale, for comparison. No tendency is found in the interval deviations of the pitch for different musical notes or changes in the musical interval. The effect of changes in melody on accuracy will be investigated in a future work.

Along with the spread of touchscreen computers, the accessibility of the touchscreen interfaces should be secured for visually impaired people. Some of them had interest and own touchscreen computers, usage condition and needs of the computer was not investigated. Specifically, following situations concerning touchscreen computers remain unknown: what kind of inconvenience they found in their using, what kind of functions they need, why some of them avoid using regardless of their interest, etc. In order to propose and familiarize user-friendly interface for visually impaired people, it is necessary not only to research accessible touchscreen computer but also to investigate current situation regarding touchscreen computers. In this paper, we aimed at demonstrating the needs and usages of touchscreen interfaces such as smartphones and tablet computers in people with visual impairment. These situations are investigated through a questionnaire for Japanese visually impaired people. Part of the results indicated that most of them would like to use touchscreen computer, that most of owners uses by means of screen readers regardless of their visual conditions, and that dynamic and even stable tactile feedback can be effective.

Assistive instruments such as slopes or textured paving blocks are installed in order to help elderly, sensory impaired and/or physically impaired people, who have any inconvenience to move outside. Though these precipitous situations of barrier-free progress affects their migration pathway for their destination, new barrier-free information are difficult to be known quickly because of local information disclosure. It is necessary to develop a comprehensive system which appropriately acquires and arranges scattered barrier-free information, and then presents information intuitively. Our study aims at developing the platform “Barrier-free walk” which can obtain and present information depending on users' situations including users' disorders and places, and can share barrier-free information provided by users. This paper reports concept design, implementation progress of the platform, and the result of needs survey in visually impaired people.

It is difficult for the deafblind or the hearing impaired to control the pitch of their voice because they cannot perceive it. In particular, when singing, it is very difficult for them to control their voice pitch because they need to maintain a stable tone. We have developed a voice pitch control system to assist such people in their singing by means of a tactile display. Using this tactile feedback system, we verified in a previous study that two deafblind subjects were able to control the pitch of their voices with as much accuracy as hearing children. By using this tactile feedback system, the correspondence between musical scale and proprioceptive sensation (muscular sensation and so on) of the two subjects was returned to pre-hearing loss levels. They sung using not only tactile feedback but also proprioceptive feedback. In this paper, we investigate the effect of voice pitch training, without auditory feedback, using our tactile feedback display system. Eight hearing participants were examined under two conditions-“without tactile feedback” and “with tactile feedback”-to ascertain their abilities to control their pitch while subjected to masking noise. The results indicated the subjects could sing with more accurate pitch using only proprioceptive feedback after tactile feedback pitch control training than that of before tactile feedback one.

The visually-impaired people have the difficulty on perceive the largeness of a space and objects existed in a space by means of visual information. Particularly auditory-trained visually-impaired people can recognize 3-D spatial information with environmental sounds. However, systematic learning method of auditory training for acquired visually-impaired is not established sufficiently because the self-experience of the visually-impaired people is the main reason of ability acquisition in the actual environment because they do not have enough information about moving in the real environment. In this paper, the authors aim at demonstrating moving situations and moving needs of the visually-impaired, for example, which acoustical factors can be used in some living situation, what kind of environmental situation they think it difficult to perceive silent objects and what kind of aid they need. Results indicated following facts: Totally visually-impaired people tend to get more spatial information from auditory than not-totally visually-impaired people. Regarding available auditory cues, items of rotating head in order to listen carefully to environmental sound, and hitting floors stronger by a white cane or foot for voluming up reflected or reverberated sounds were much selected by the totally visually-impaired participants who can perceive obstacles with auditory information. Result of question about conventional devices indicated that most totally visually-impaired participants selected electrical sounding device informing obstacle distance, while most not-totally visually-impaired participants selected vibrating device informing the distance of walls or doors and tactually-stimulated device informing obstacle distance.

It is difficult for the deafblind or the hearing impaired to control the pitch of their voice because they cannot perceive it. In particular, when singing, it is very difficult for them to control their voice pitch because they need to maintain a stable tone. We have developed a voice pitch control system to assist their singing by means of a tactile display. Using this tactile feedback system, we verified in a previous study that two deafblind subjects were able to control the pitch of their voices with as much accuracy as hearing children. By using this tactile feedback system, the correspondence between musical scale and proprioceptive sensation (muscular sensation and so on) of the two subjects was returned to pre-hearing loss levels. They sung using not only tactile feedback but also proprioceptive feedback. In this paper, we investigate the ability of hearing subjects to control the pitch of their voice, without auditory feedback, using our tactile feedback system. Seven hearing participants were examined under two conditions - “without tactile feedback” and “with tactile feedback” - to ascertain their abilities to control their pitch while subjected to masking noise. The results indicated hearing subjects could not sing with accurate pitch using only proprioceptive feedback (“without tactile feedback” condition).

It is difficult for the deafblind or the hearing impaired to control their voice pitch because they cannot perceive it. In particular, when singing it is very difficult for them to control their voice pitch because they must maintain a stable tone. In this research, a voice pitch control system is developed to assist their singing by means of a tactile display. The tactile musical note display has 64 piezoelectric vibrators arranged in four rows (16 × 4 rows). A user rests the last joint of an index finger on the tactile display to receive tactile stimuli. The user can then control voice pitch using tactile feedback. In this study, data on the voice pitch of two subjects were measured to calculate interval deviation that was different from voice pitch to a target musical interval. The average data for the interval deviation of both subjects used in this study was 117.5 [cent]. The study result shows the deafblind users in this study can sing a song with as much accuracy as hearing children.