1. The Virtual Guide Dog (VGD)
Michael Kastner, Clemens Novak
Digital Concepts, Linz, Austria
Page  droidcon.
droidcon.

2. Example app
Page  droidcon.

3. What is the VGD
Mobile system for improvement of the
–
Communication (phone, sms, email)
–
Personal information management and
–
Mobility (pedestrian GPS)
of highly visual impaired people (not blind)
Page  droidcon.

4. Imagine
Imagine
What would you do with your android
if you are strong visual impaired
Page  droidcon.

5. Target group, focus
§
The VGD is focused on people with a remaining visus of minimum 2 %!
§
The VGD ist designed vor visual impaired people NOT blind
§
The people of the target group wants to use their remaining capabilities
(their eyes) and they don´t want to be classified as blind.
§
As distinguished to other products (screenreader like voice over) the
VGD has ist own, special UI concept
§
More possible target groups
–
Elderly people
–
All other visual impairements (like to high eye-pressure (f.e.
diabetics))
Page  droidcon.

6. The basic idea
§
The basic idea for interaction is based on colors.
§
98% of visual impaired people are able to distinguish colors.
Even if they see blured or cloudy.
§
The buttons and the visualization depend on colored
interaction symbols which can be recognized unique by
visual impaired people
§
Callbacks (f.e. search results of a list), status results or
guidance instructions are talked via the speech synthesizer
(tts)
§
The speech synthesizer also talks text from messages
(email, sms) and so on.
Page  droidcon.

7. Basic idea II – color coding
1 3
7
8
0 droidcon.
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8. Whats the time?
HH
MM
Page  droidcon.

9. Interaction concepts
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Colored interaction symbols
§
Color-Keyboard
§
Special Home Screen
§
Speech synthesizer
§
Swiping within lists
§
Limitation to basic needs.
Page  droidcon.

10. Userinterface – example with contacts
Filter the list
with standard forward/back
SMS-Keyboard swiping within the
contacts
2x = N
Backspace, delete last
Call
character
Page  droidcon.
options

11. Implemented functions
§
Telephone
§
Contactlist
§
SMS
§
Clock, Date
§
MP3 Player
§
Calllists
§
Calendar
Page  droidcon.

12. Working progress
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Edit and compose new contacts
§
Edit and compose new appoitments
§
Alarm clock
§
E-Mail „visualization“, edit and compose
Page  droidcon.

13. Planned
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GPS routing for pedestrians
–
Based on Openstreetmap project
–
Business logic maybe from AndRoad
–
We do not need visualized maps
We need routing instructions
(routing, mapmatching, rerouting) …
§
Social-Network-Integration
Page  droidcon.

14. Added value for the people
§
Access to modern technologies
§
Use of the the remaining visus (capabilities of the eyes)
§
VGD was developed for the special needs of the people
§
Cheap hardware, no special needs
§
Social integration of impaired people
§
Raising the self-respect of those
§
Better selfemployment
Page  droidcon.

15. The future, wishes
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Alternative map provider for navigation (f.e. google)
–
API, maps (directed graph, no visual map)
§
Phone API
§
Go open source
§
Maybe crowd funding or investors
Page  droidcon.

16. Contact
Michael Kaster (michael.kastner@digital-concepts.at)
Clemens Novak (clemens.novak@digital-concepts.at)
Digital Concepts
Software & Design
Landstraße 68
A-4020 Linz
Page  droidcon.