Image-based tactile emojis

Abstract

In order to enhance the missing non-verbal cues in a computer-mediated communication (CMC) using text, the sighted use emojis or emoticons. Although emojis for the sighted have improved immensely over the years to contain audio effects and animations, the emojis for the visually impaired still remains underdeveloped. This study tested how tactile emojis based on visual imagery can enhance the clarity in the CMC environment for the visually impaired. Based on previous studies that support the fact that the visually impaired (even the congenitally blind) have their own understanding of visual imagery and can recognize simple objects and facial expression through previous experience, the tactile emojis are expected to be easier to learn compared to other tactile services which do not use imagery as a reference for its design. In this study, three things were confirmed: first, the visually impaired subjects’ ability to connect the emotional emojis to its emotion without any prior guidance

second, comparing the learnability of imagery-based tactile emoji and non imagery-based tactile emoji

and lastly, the improvement of clarity when using an emoji with text (braille). Thirty subjects were asked to complete the user test and as a result, the visually impaired subjects were able to match an average of 4.03 out of six emotions without prior guidance, and three out of the four subjects who matched perfectly before and after the guidance were congenitally blind. After the guidance, the imagery-based tactile design had an average of correct answers that were 4.87 out of six, while the non-imagery based tactile design had an average of 2.19 out of six, which shows that the imagery-based tactile design where more affective when learning. The clarity of the sentence also improved. Out of the thirty subjects, only two subjects had different interpretation of the sentence after the tactile emoji were added to the sentence. This study shows that the imagery-based tactile icons for the visually impaired can upgrade their texting experience to a whole new level where they can communicate the subtle emotional cues through tactile imagery. The advancement could minimize the service gap between the sighted and the visually impaired and offer a much more abundant CMC environment for the visually impaired.