Alternative modalities for visually impaired users to control smart TVs

Smart TVs offer a variety of features that increase interactivity and available services when compared to other TVs. Furthermore, remote controls have become more complex, with more and smaller buttons, making interaction difficult for people with visual impairments. To address some of these concerns, the solution described herein offers, through a mobile application, a set of alternative interaction modalities ranging from mid-air gestures to speech commands. This paper presents the results of a user study comparing user and system performance using the proposed modalities. Touch and speech were the most efficient modalities. The combined usage of the mobile application and TalkBack resulted in more user errors, consequence of the introduction of an additional interaction layer. Most participants reported they would replace the remote control with this solution. The discussion of the findings and a lessons learned section are the main contributions of this work.