Multimodal Collaborative Handwriting Training for Visually-Impaired People

Beryl Plimmer, Andrew Crossan, Stephen A. Brewster, and Rachel Blagojevic

Summary

The authors present McSig a learning system for teaching visually-impaired students handwriting and how to sign their names. The system consists of a force-feedback device that restricts movement of a pen while learning. The force-feedback is gradually reduced as a student becomes more familiar with how a shape is drawn. A teacher is able convey how something is drawn by drawing it on a separate screen, and the force-feedback device replicates the drawing movement. They conducted an evaluation consisting of 8 visually-impaired students over the age of 10 and still in school. The evaluation highlighted design issues and provided indication that this system could possibly help the visually-impaired learn handwriting.

Discussion

The work is interesting. It's always great to see work applying technology to help make lives easire for a those in need, even when they are only a small subset of the population. The force-feedback echoing when the teacher draws a shape seems like a nice and helpful idea for teaching. I wonder if a device such as this could be used to improve motor skills of those you have injured their hands and need physical therapy.