Android Mobile Application using Voice

Recogonition for Visually Challenged to Listen and

Write PDF/Word files.
U.Avanthika[1], Silviya Nancy[2], Shyam Sundar[3]
[1][3]

UG Students, [2] Assistant Professor

Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Saveetha School of Engineering,
Saveetha University, Chennai. India.
avanthika157@gmail.com
jsilviyanancy@gmail.com
shyamsundar@gmail.com
AbstractMobile phones are used by people in large
amount. But in the case the blind people are lagging in
using mobile for educational purposes. They use scribes
and readers to write and read books and documents. With
the advent of interactive android operating system, and
applications like travel aiding apps which uses motion
sensors and voice user interfaces (VUI) or the voice
response systems, we are still a step behind in giving an
application for educational purposes. This paper proposes
a idea of having an application which when launched reads
books or writes assignment for the blind people as directed
which mitigates the use of scribes and readers in the busy
world.

II.

Around 25000 visually challenged people were enquired in

Austria, Germany and Switzerland where 61% of them were
blind by birth [1]. They informed that they use screen
magnifiers (in the case of partially impaired) and screen
readers (in the case of visually challenged who needs voice
outputs to perceive information. It was found that 95% of
blind computer users and 85% of mobile users uses screen
readers to work on files and documents. The comparatively
analyzed chart between the percentage of participants and the
degree of visual impairment that uses mobile screen readers
prevalently is presented here to understand the need of PDF /
Word reader for the visually challenged people.

Keywords
visually
challenged;
educational
application; VUI; books reading; document writing.
I.

INTRODUCTION

With the advancements in technology, the advent of mobile

softwares with voice user interfaces is high. There are
softwares like GNOME, Orca, Apple Voiceover, Windows
Reader, Dolphin, Supernova and so on which can be used as
screen readers to the blind. still when it comes to reading and
writing files, they are a step lagging in completing the task
without a third person's help.
This paper uses the voice user interface to interact with the
blind. Handheld devices can help blind in high levels when
they are promptly used. The advent of softwares like Teflo [1] ,
it is easy to use mobile phones where navigation for the
visually challenged is taken care of. With this app installed,
the blind choose between two things, either to read or to write.
If they choose the read option, list of available word and PDF
files will be listed. The reader system which is formulated will
read the document that is opened. If they choose the write
operation, as and when they dictate, the file will be written
which can be imported as PDF or word files upon completion.
Hence, this app will serve as both scribe and reader to the
visually challenged smart phone user.

USE OF MOBILE SCREEN READER BY

BLIND:

Mobile Screen Reader Usage

1
0.8
0.6
0.4

Mobile
Screen
Reader
Usage

0.2
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Fig: Graph on utilization of screen readers by the blind.
The percentage of blind who were subjected to the survey
versus the degree of blindness is plotted in the graph. As the
degree increases, the screen reader utility is increased. About
85% of visually challenged with 6th degree of blindness or
complete visual damage is opting screen readers prevalently.
III. AVAILABLE SCREEN READING SOFTWARES:
Screen readers [3] are the softwares that are used to read the
content on the screen which can be later used by the blind to
select the particular icon or task easily.
The available screen reader softwares :

eclipse. The google voice search and google talk are taken as
base with which the reader and writer modules are developed.
To store the data which is been given as input to the writer
screen and to store the PDF or word files for later retrieval is
done using the SQL-lite which is the traditional database for
android based applications.
The illustration on how the application is divided into modules
and how it works is defined in the algorithm section.

Screen Reader

Creator

Platform

ChromeVox

Google

ChromeOS

iZoom

Issist

Windows

MobileSpeak

Code Factory

Windows
Mobile

TalkBack

Google

Android 1.6+

VoiceOver

Apple

Mac OS X

VI. ILLUSTRATIVE ALGORITHM

Virtual Vision

Micropower

Windows

MicroSurf

MicroSurf

MAC, Windows

The algorithm illustrates the working of the application on its

installation. The application has two divisions, the reading and
writing sections which are used to read and write the files
using VUI as in the screen readers.

Some of the above are for commercial use and some are
freewares. With the available screen readers and the available
technologies, it is easy to design an application that can read
files and write files for the blind.
IV. EXISTING TECHNOLOGIES:
There are several studies about e-learning for blind[4]. An
intelligent speech based learning system and case based
reasoning based on the Braille system is brought into existence
with Apache middleware. The VUI and WUI are used through
mobile phones by the registered telephone numbers which
accesses the internet respectively. VoiceXML is used in
developing the system which complements the existing elearning and web-based learning systems.
A. Android Voice Interface:
The voice actions of Android VUI are app-based, and they are
declared just like a launcher icon. Users says "Start " to use
these voice actions and an activity that you specify starts in the
mobile screen.
B. Google Voice Search:
The google voice search allows the user to use the internet by
giving voice inputs which are then searched in google search.
Android 4.1+ jelly bean is merged with google search.
C. S Voice Agent:
S Voice[5] is the peculiar software which is available only in
the Samsung android series, which includes S4, S4 Mini, Tab
3 7.0, Stellar, Grand, Core etc., They are running with the help
of Nuance backup. The usage is limited to opening apps,
alarms, and social networking websites.
V. PROPOSAL AND IMPLEMENTATION IDEA
The idea that is being proposed is based on the existing screen
readers and VUI interfaces. When there are applications like
screen readers which reads the contents on the screen, we can
use an application which can mitigate the amount of people
involved for reading to the blinds (readers) and writing to the
blinds (scribes).
This is done in the android platform which is used by 85% of
the blind users[6]. ADT tools are used which are the plug-in for

A. Basic Guidance on Using The Application:

Install the application.
When the app is open,
Switch()
{
Case 1 : Read books; Break;
Case 2 : Write documents; Break;
}
Initially, two switch cases are given where the read book and
write book options are available. When specified, the control
is passed to the specified window which performs that
particular operation.
B. Algorithm for writing the file:
Open the installed application:
If( The app is open)
Choose "Write Files" option.
if(Write) is selected
Write in the input screen that is shown.
if (the input is given)
do
{
Imported to word or PDF.
}
else
{
give VoiceOutput("Error");
}
When the write command is selected, the screen which uses
voice recognition is shown. As the visually challenged dictates
their files, the draft of the dictation is made in the input screen.
The input given is then imported to word or PDF which can
later be read using read option of the app. If the word is not
recognized by the control, then error voice output is given.
C. Algorithm for reading the file:
Open the installed application.

If (read) is selected
Display the pdf/word files.
if ( the file is chosen)
Do
{
Read the file word by word.
}
else
{
give VoiceOutput ("File is not available");
}
When the read operation is selected, the available files are
displayed as a list. When the particular file which is to be read
is specified, that file is read word by word. If there is some
error, the file is not available message is thrown. This
operation can be interrupted in-between to pause and resume.
VII.WORKING AND IMPLEMETATION OF AN APPLICATION
The product of this proposal is to make blinds to have access
and reading of audio books with the help of VUI and available
technologies which reads the document when prompted to
read and writes the files when prompted to write. The working
of the application with the files can be explained with the
screenshots which illustrates how actually the application
works
Here, the file is read when the speaker or mic button at the
bottom of the page is pressed. Pressing it one more time
pauses the file giving space for the person to decide on rereading and understanding.
From the heading to the end, word by word, the application
reads the document in user understandable speed.

Fig 2. Screenshot on how the file is being read by the

application.
Same way, the application writes the files as and when the
words are dictated after prompting to write. As and when
dictated, the words are drafted on the screen. By long pressing
the speaker button, the user is prompted to save or discard the
file which is dictated.

Fig. 3 Document writing by the application

All the data and documents that are saved and read are
maintained by the SQL-Lite database, which is the supporting
database in android. This is implemented using Eclipse tool
which is used to develop applications in android. This
application can be handy 24/7 to the visually impaired for
educational and recreational purposes.
VIII. CONCLUSION
A handy application for the visually challenged to use the
mobile phones productively is formulated. With this
application, as shown, they can read the files that are available
and they can write the files which are very much important to
them. It is hard to hire readers and scribes in the busy arena.
With the advent of VUI and applications of these kinds, a
visually challenged person can mitigate the work of two. It is
handy and it can be used round the clock anywhere anytime.

Hence, the educational productivity by the visually impaired

can be drastically increased.
.
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