VoiceWriting: a completely speech-based text editor

Abstract

Assistive technologies, mostly based on speech recognition and synthesis, help visually-impaired people writing text on digital devices. However, they do not fully support non-sequential text editing without the use of sight. This paper discusses the design of the interaction protocol underlying the first prototype of a text editor that is especially designed for people with very poor eyesight. It does not require the visual localization of text for non-sequential editing of multiple-paragraph documents and only exploits voice and ”uninterpreted” keyboard input, namely the outmoded ”press any key” for mode-switching. Preliminary tests complete the paper.