Real-time Presentation Access Technology for the Blind
This invention provides real-time access to live PowerPoint presentations for blind and visually impaired individuals. A special add-in converts slides into accessible text, which is sent via a cloud service to audience devices. This allows users to follow along synchronously with the presenter, enhancing engagement and accessibility.
Description
The invention is a system that provides real-time, synchronous access to Microsoft PowerPoint slideshows for visually impaired individuals. It comprises a Presenter Add-in for PowerPoint that converts slide content into accessible text and metadata, publishing this information to a Cloud Service. This Cloud Service acts as a message-oriented middleware using a publish/subscribe model, facilitating real-time, scalable communication between the presenter and audience. A User Terminal Application, compatible with various devices, subscribes to the Cloud Service to receive and display the current slide information, enabling the user to follow the presentation synchronously. Novel features: 1. A presenter add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint that automatically detects live navigation events and transmits structured, accessible slide content in real time.: While tools exist to make presentation files accessible for later use, this component's novelty appears to lie in its automation and real-time nature. It programmatically hooks into the live presentation events (e.g., a slide change) to instantly extract and publish structured text and metadata. This seems to be an improvement over prior academic systems, such as the "Slide-Aware" project (Bigham, J. P., et al. "Slide-Aware: A System for Making In-Class Presentations Accessible to Blind Students." ASSETS '09), which required a human assistant to manually indicate the current slide rather than using an automated, integrated software add-in. 2. An end-to-end system architecture using a publish/subscribe model for synchronous delivery of accessible presentation data to multiple device types.: The specific combination of the presenter add-in, a message-oriented cloud service, and multi-platform subscriber applications to solve this accessibility problem appears to be a novel configuration. Instead of sharing a visual screen feed, which is difficult for screen readers to interpret, this system transmits the underlying structured data of the slide. This architecture decouples the presenter from the audience, allowing for a scalable and anonymous method for visually impaired users to subscribe to a named presentation on a variety of devices, including specialized Braille note-takers, and receive content synchronously with the live talk.Applications
1. Educational Accessibility Solutions: This invention enables visually impaired students and educators to synchronously access live lectures and course materials presented via slideshows, fostering inclusive learning environments.2. Enterprise and Professional Accessibility Solutions: This technology provides visually impaired professionals and attendees with real-time access to presentation content in corporate, government, and conference settings, enhancing workplace inclusivity and participation.
Advantages
1. Real-time Synchronous Access: Unlike existing methods that provide static, pre-distributed slide materials (e.g., PDFs, handouts), this invention delivers live slide content and navigation updates as the presentation progresses, ensuring visually impaired users are always in sync with the presenter.2. Enhanced User Engagement and Participation: By providing real-time content, the invention allows visually impaired attendees to follow the live flow, understand context, and actively participate in discussions, which is not possible with static, outdated pre-distributed materials.
3. Comprehensive and Dynamic Content Capture: The system programmatically analyzes and converts full slide content, including metadata, layout information, and properties of non-textual objects, offering a richer and more accurate representation of the live slide than simple text-based pre-distributed documents.
4. Streamlined Presenter Workflow for Accessibility: The PowerPoint add-in automates the process of making presentations accessible in real-time, eliminating the need for presenters to manually prepare and distribute updated accessible versions during a live session, which is a burden with existing static approaches.
5. Broad Multi-Device Accessibility for Users: The user terminal application supports a wide range of devices (PC/Mac, iOS/Android, Braille note-takers), providing flexible access to live presentation content for visually impaired individuals regardless of their preferred device or assistive technology.