A barcode-scanner aid for visually-impaired people

Author

Damper, R.I. ; Garner, D. ; Jordan, G. ; Rahman, A. ; Saunders, C.

Author_Institution

Fac. of Eng. & Appl. Sci., Southampton Univ., UK

Volume

1

fYear

1996

fDate

31 Oct-3 Nov 1996

Firstpage

397

Abstract

Visually-impaired people living independently face problems in determining the contents of packaged foods, both at home and when shopping in modern, `self-service´ stores. This work was aimed at assessing the feasibility of using product barcodes as an aid to the identification of package contents. Technical feasibility has been addressed by production of a prototype barcode scanner featuring synthetic speech output. Human factors assessment of the prototype is ongoing. Wider issues (e.g. economic and social) are also receiving attention

Keywords

biomedical electronics; ergonomics; handicapped aids; human factors; mark scanning equipment; speech synthesis; ADPCM waveform encoding; barcode-scanner aid; economic issues; electronic design; ergonomic design; human factors assessment; laser scanner; microcontroller; package contents identification; packaged food contents; portable hand-held device; product barcodes; social issues; software simulation; synthetic speech output; visually-impaired people; Agriculture; Aquaculture; Costs; Food industry; Food technology; Human factors; Packaging; Prototypes; Speech coding; Usability;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 1996. Bridging Disciplines for Biomedicine. Proceedings of the 18th Annual International Conference of the IEEE

Conference_Location

Amsterdam

Print_ISBN

0-7803-3811-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IEMBS.1996.657011

Filename

657011