A smart handheld magnifier for reflowing printed text notices in public spaces

Abstract

Purpose

Individuals with reduced vision may rely on handheld magnifiers for near reading of texts on household items such as food packaging and far reading of information notices and signposts. Smartphones have become favoured magnification devices due to their pervasiveness. Users typically take a photo of the text, view the image with magnification and explore details by panning in two-dimensions. However, two-dimensional panning is cumbersome, confusing and slow.

Materials and methods

To improve the magnification experience, we implemented a proof-of-concept magnifier that reflows text to fit the device’s viewport width. The user navigates through the text by scrolling up/down. Our implementation relies on a novel pixel-based text reflow image analysis algorithm.

Results

The prototype can successfully reflow text printed on sheets of paper such as notices. Initial tests showed that users preferred the smart digital magnifier over ordinary magnification.

Conclusions

More work is needed to successfully handle other important use cases such as electronic information boards and household product packaging. We discuss open challenges and future directions for smart magnifiers.

Keywords:

• Low-vision
• magnification
• reflow
• text size
• reading

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The source code for the magnifier prototype can be found at: https://github.com/frode-sandnes/HANDHELD-MAGNIFIER-REFLOW

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Frode Eika Sandnes

Frode Eika Sandnes is a professor and distinguished teaching fellow in the Department of Computer Science at the Faculty of Technology, Art and Design at Oslo Metropolitan University. His research interests include human-computer interaction and accessibility. He has been instrumental in the establishment of the first master specialisation in Norway that addresses universally designed computer systems. Sandnes is an editorial member of several international journals. He has organised several international conferences. He was involved in the translation of W3Cs WCAG 2.0 into Norwegian.

Nechrvan Murad

Nechrvan Murad is a bachelor candidate in computer science at Oslo Metropolitan University.

Mohammad Khaled

Mohammad Khaled is a bachelor candidate in computer science at Oslo Metropolitan University.

Fadl El Nassani

Fadl El Nassani is a bachelor candidate in computer science at Oslo Metropolitan University.