Show HN: Voice - An iOS App that lets blind people read

Show HN: Voice - An iOS App that lets blind people read(shalinshah.me)

57 points by shalinshah 11 years ago | 25 comments

As someone who used to exclusively write software for the visually impaired at Ai Squared (I wrote a huge portion of http://sitecues.com during my time there), I wanna thank Shalin for building this. There are VERY few developers (in fact, non-developers, too) out there who understand the needs of that audience. We all take that stuff for granted, but to a blind person, this type of software means so much to them. I remember going to the CSUN Conference last year and meeting a bunch of amazing folks who were blind and seeing them use our software ... I was in a happy mood for weeks after that experience. Please continue building software like this. Please. Much respect, Shalin. You're awesome, man.

- Jonathan

computerjunkie 11 years ago |

I'm happy there are developers out there that understand there are blind people out there who have a hard time using things we take for granted. This is a great approach to solving real problems that affect people. Kudos Shalin.

A personal opinion, these are the kind of ideas that should get backed by Venture Capitalists as compared to the "Yo" application.

ndarilek 11 years ago |

Cool app. Just a bit of feedback:

1. Since you're targeting blind users, you may want to use a bit more ARIA on your page, particularly around the popup menu.

2. It would be nice if the main page explicitly stated that this was for IOS. I'm an Android user and had to explicitly click through to figure out it wasn't for me. IOS certainly has a larger share of blind users, but Android is popular as well.

Good luck! Any plans for an Android version? If so, and you'd like a tester who is also a developer familiar with its accessibility framework, please do let me know.

shalinshah 11 years ago | |

Yes, in the future, I will be making an android version, so stay tuned :)

qrazhan 11 years ago |

My initial impression of this app is that it's a cool demo of OCR technology, but I'm not sure how useful it would actually be to blind people. How would they know if they are taking a good enough picture of the text in the first place? How do they even hit the button? I could see using one of the hardware buttons as a shutter could work, but I don't know if you can do that in iOS.

(Note: I'm neither blind nor an iOS user so I do not know how blind users use iOS. Please correct me if I am wrong.)

arrrg 11 years ago | |

Using apps is no problem (if devs don’t ignore accessibility). iOS comes with a screenreader (VoiceOver) and all the default apps are accessible. Here is a (somewhat boring) walkthrough of the Camera app using VoiceOver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVDojENUGw0

Here is a somewhat more entertaining video of a blind person using Instagram, also on the iPhone with VoiceOver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1e7ZCKQfMA

Here is a video from the same guy, using an app to identify objects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeB0BH8rAc8&list=UUld5SlwHrX...

Basically, taping on the screen once will read to you what you just tapped, tapping twice (anywhere on the screen) will then select that. There are also gestures to navigate the different elements on the screen (mostly what you would expect, e.g. swiping forward/backward to got to the next/previous element)

I think Android has a similar screenreader by now (no idea how good it is) and I can only recommend playing around with it to get a feel for it.

I would assume taking good enough pictures is just a question of patience and practice. There is feedback (how much, if anything, was recognized?) so it’s possible to learn and get better at it.

MaxGabriel 11 years ago |

When I first opened the site there the main graphic loaded really slowly. Its a 2.1 MB PNG; you may want to change it to JPEG since it'll be way smaller and look just the same (especially since its a photo to begin with).

http://www.shalinshah.me/voice/images/bg2.png

Edit: I made a 60% JPEG from this PNG that weighs in at 281KB if you want to use it:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/okqij5hiubw08sz/bg2.jpg

Also somewhat weird that "Get this app" isn't centered like the rest of the content.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/80piftabnf57jwt/Screenshot%202014-...

abigezunt 11 years ago |

Are there any blind users of your app? How does it compare to the existing technologies that blind people are using for reading? What do blind people think of it so far? How does it handle formatting, OCR errors, fast-forwarding, that kind of thing?

malloreon 11 years ago |

People looking for audio access to textbooks and other printed materials should check out

https://www.learningally.org/

They're a non-profit that provides volunteer-read mp3s of text books and other popular reading materials. Last I checked, they received a government grant that let them give away memberships to blind/dyslexic students.

I used to read for them - knowing thousands of people have used the thousands of pages I read to learn is really satisfying.

matthijs_ 11 years ago |

Great product, English works great. I also tried it out on Dutch text, but that didn't work so well of course.

But still, very nice! Probably also a very useful tool for people who have dyslexia.

jonathanmarvens 11 years ago | |

Hi, Matthijs.

As a dyslexic myself, I just wanted to point out (at least for those who don't know) that dyslexia manifests itself differently in many folks, so while this may be useful for some folks who are dyslexic, it isn't for all of us (like me, for example).

- Jonathan

eglover 11 years ago |

Why choose this over audio-books and advanced TTS software? As qrazhan noted, it's very difficult (unnecessarily so) to use in the first place. (ie. electronics are already the way to go, why would you care about print versions vs. digital versions if you're blind? they all sound the same).

I wonder, is this something you yourself use? Are you blind? In which case, I'm sure you're aware that this is not how assistive software works. Sorry, I just don't get it.

ndarilek 11 years ago | |

Not everything is available digitally--mail, for instance. Sure, given the choice, I'd choose an existing digital book over one I scan myself, but I can't for instance choose a digital version of the medical bills the hospital mails me.

That said, this isn't an entirely unique concept, and you're right, positioning the camera is challenging. There are tools to help with this--arms and stands that position devices at the correct height to photograph a standard-sized sheet of paper. It may strike you as entirely impractical, but I remember the days when scanners were huge and bulky things, and even now when they aren't, I don't necessarily have the desk space to keep one out, or the desire to hook it up and store it when not in use. A reliable camera-based OCR solution for my Android phone and an arm/paper guide calibrated to the S III would rock, and assuming reasonable material prices and standard markup (I.e. not the absolutely huge markups of AT) it'd be competitive with dedicated OCR solutions and hardware.

Source: I'm blind.

jonathanmarvens 11 years ago | | |

Hi, Nolan.

You're blind and a developer? As I noted in my comment ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8138937 ), I used to write software for awesome folks like you. I'd love to chat with you for a bit if you don't mind? What's your email?

Thanks!

- Jonathan

eglover 11 years ago | | |

What kind of hospital (or anyone who sells mail for that matter) doesn't use email? It's recognized as both safer and cheaper. Snail mail through USPS is pretty archaic.

martijndeh 11 years ago | |

Can you give an example of the TTS software you consider advanced? The software I tried works, but too often sounds robotic and far from natural. Especially for the Dutch language.

devindotcom 11 years ago |

Is this strictly for books? Because audiobooks are a fairly well established way for the blind to read those. Does this work in any way with periodicals, webpages, and newspapers? They often have unpredictable layouts. Letting a blind person read the front page of the New York Times print edition would be a pretty great accomplishment.

eglover 11 years ago | |

Google Glass app that reads what's in front of you?! O.O

chrmaury 11 years ago |

Very excited to see more people working on accessible applications!

How is this different from TextDetective, or other OCR apps for the blind?

DesaiAshu 11 years ago |

Awesome project Shalin, great to see you using your coding powers to tackle serious problems!

notduncansmith 11 years ago |

I wish I could try this out, but it crashes on load for me. Damn iOS 8 beta.

vipuljshah 11 years ago |

Nice app. Keep it up.