Development of a keyboardless social networking website for visually impaired: SocialWeb

Abstract

Over the past decade, we have witnessed a huge upsurge in social networking which continues to touch and transform our lives till present day. Social networks help us to communicate amongst our acquaintances and friends with whom we share similar interests on a common platform. Globally, there are more than 200 million visually impaired people. Visual impairment has many issues associated with it, but the one that stands out is the lack of accessibility to content for entertainment and socializing safely. This paper deals with the development of a keyboard less social networking website for visually impaired. The term keyboard less signifies minimum use of keyboard and allows the user to explore the contents of the website using assistive technologies like screen readers and speech to text (STT) conversion technologies which in turn provides a user friendly experience for the target audience. As soon as the user with minimal computer proficiency opens this website, with the help of screen reader, he/she identifies the username and password fields. The user speaks out his username and with the help of STT conversion (using Web Speech API), the username is entered. Then the control moves over to the password field and similarly, the password of the user is obtained and matched with the one saved in the website database. The concept of acoustic fingerprinting has been implemented for successfully validating the passwords of registered users and foiling intentions of malicious attackers. On successful match of the passwords, the user is able to enjoy the services of the website without any further hassle. Once the access obstacles associated to deal with social networking sites are successfully resolved and proper technologies are put to place, social networking sites can be a rewarding, fulfilling, and enjoyable experience for the visually impaired people.