Phone User Interface for the Vision Impaired

Tools allow the vision impaired and senior citizens to enjoy their phones, despite the phones' small screens and tiny fonts!

To display more content on their limited screen, mobile phones use small fonts. That is very inconvenient for elderly users and the vision impaired. Several Symbian applications are available to help make the Nokia Series 60 smartphones easier to use for those users.

One category of applications is screen readers. They have text-to-speech engines to read out everything that is currently displayed on the screen via the phone's speaker. Of course, those screen readers run in the background to avoid interference with regular phone use and with other applications. Popular screen reader programs include:

The SpeechPAK TALKs program from ScanSoft
(http://www.scansoft.com/speechpak/talks/)

The Mobile Speak program from Code Factory (http://www.codefactory.es/)

Screen readers not only help the vision impaired to use their phones, but also allow hands-free access to email and Short Message Service (SMS) messages on the phone. They also work great with Bluetooth car kits.

Another type of program actually magnifies part of the screen to make the text easier to see. For instance, the Mobile Magnifier program, also from Code Factory, runs in the background and magnifies the currently highlighted item on the screen so that it is easier to see