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Tikk-Tekk Rainbow Measuring Device for Visually Impaired People

TheFuture — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:36:09 +0000

Tikk-Tekk Rainbow is an innovative and low-cost universal measuring device that uses visual, auditory and tactile feedback for measuring an object and is specially designed for visually impaired individuals. The device has been designed in a simple and straightforward manner that it can be easily used by all range of people to get accurate measurement readings. Two rings made of rubber plastic slips over each index finger of the user. As the measuring string loosen, the device plays a “tikk” sound after every centimeter and a “tekk” sound at each five centimeters. Moreover, embossed Braille numbers and printed digits are also showing the result of measurement.

Designer : Guopeng Liang and Yun Li

Digimech Clock : Innovative Method of Time Display

TheFuture — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:00:24 +0000

The new clock designed by UK based designer Duncon Shutton’s digimech clock sure seems interesting innovation. This life size clock, as the name suggests, combines the mechanical and digital aspects in a clock, as in the display digits of the clock. This is an original idea as the minute and the hour digits change just as in the game of tetra. The good thing is that even though the change is constant with each passing second, the final digit only changes after the respective minute has passed. It is fun to watch the way the minutes or hours change and takes a bit of an effort to understand the change of time, but sure signifies the talent the designer has.

Designer : Duncan Shotton

[SÉNS] Mobile Phone Concept for People with Visual Impairment Including Complete Blindness

TheFuture — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:20:20 +0000

Mobiles have become a part of our. It is as if life won’t move a step ahead without mobile phones. Now just imagine if you could not clearly see the digits and alphabets on your mobile, hard to even imagine right? Many visually impaired people have the ability to recognize things like light intensity colors. Takumi Yoshida gives the basic phone status to such people through color illumination and identifiable keypad, called SÉNS. With the help of glow of color they will be able to see the tiny texts on screen to at least some extent. The enlightenment is positioned on the sides as the sides are the ones that are exposed when the phone is on a flat surface.

In order to improve audio interactions between the user and the phone, SÉNS combines touch sensors and regular mechanical keys to provide real-time audio feedbacks. What this means is that when a user touches a key, the phone tells him what key has been touched without actually registering it as an input. The user may hover across the keys to consecutively gain feedbacks on which key they are touching.

Once the user is sure his finger is on the correct key, he then can press the key just like on any other standard phones. Once a key is pressed, another ‘click’ sound is fed back to confirm the input. This system is essentially just an audio version of what people without sight problems always utilizes; visual indications. This provides more efficient interactions and reduces the chance of making wrong inputs compared to current products used by people with visual impairment as they only provide audio feedbacks after key inputs are registered.

One of the biggest issues with ‘talking’ phones is that the sound interaction can be heard by other people nearby. Using a headset wired or wireless (if Bluetooth is available) can solve the problem, however having a headset integrated to the main phone can offer a number of advantages.

Designer : Takumi Yoshida