New PIN App Helps Blind Users Unlock Their Smartphones Without Hassle
By Alexa Heah, 19 Jan 2023
There are times when our fingers slip up, and we enter the wrong passcode on our smartphones. Imagine the difficulty that the visually impaired face with this seemingly mundane task, as they won’t be able to see the screen they’re typing on.
Plus, as New Atlas notes, there’s a heightened sense of alertness required when a blind person is keying in his or her secret code, as there’s no way for them to know if someone’s standing next to them peering at the string of letters and numbers.
To aid those with visual disabilities, scientists at Canada’s University of Waterloo and New York’s Rochester Institute of Technology have come up with a prototype application that uses vibrations to send information to users instead of visual notifications.
Those relying on audible screen technologies may not know where to place the password to unlock a phone, and it’s tedious to update a biometric “password” if there’s any damage to one’s face or fingerprints.
As such, the researchers created ‘OneButtonPIN’—a virtual big button on the side of a smartphone’s screen that allows the user to produce a series of vibrations. These subtle movements can be felt through a finger or thumb, and are not audible to anyone else.
When inputting a particular number, the user will simply count the vibrations, and release the button once the corresponding number of vibrations has been felt, before repeating the action for subsequent numbers.
During a trial run, nine blind and low-vision (BLV) volunteers entered several randomly generated PINs into the system once a day. At the end of the week-long test, the team found participants could enter them with an average accuracy of 83.6% as compared to the previous 78.1%.
More importantly, when the volunteers entered their PINs on devices with the application, none of them were successfully able to identify one another’s code, which was happening with traditional methods used.
“While OneButtonPIN was designed for BLV people, many users will appreciate the added security. When we make things more accessible, we make things more usable for the average user as well,” says Waterloo’s Dr Stacey Watson.
More details on the application can be found in a study recently published in the Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction.
[via New Atlas and University of Waterloo, cover image via PureSolution | Dreamstime.com]