C. Stephanidis (Ed.): Universal Access in HCI, Part I, HCII 2009, LNCS 5614, pp. 68–77, 2009. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009 A Multimodal Board Game System Interface Using Finger Input for Visually Impaired Computer Users Yusuke Hamaguchi 1 , Daisuke Nagasaka 2 , Takahiro Tamesue 2 , Kazunori Itoh 2 , Michio Shimizu 3 , Masahiko Sugimoto 1,4 , Masami Hashimoto 2 , and Mizue Kayama 2 1 Graduate School of Science and Technology, Shinshu University, 4-17-1 Wakasato Nagano-shi, Nagano 380-8553 Japan t07a690@shinshu-u.ac.jp 2 Faculty of Engineering, Shinshu University, 4-17-1 Wakasato Nagano-shi, Nagano 380-8553 Japan t055064@shinshu-u.ac.jp, {tamesue,itoh,hasimoto,kayama}@cs.shinshu-u.ac.jp 3 Nagano-ken College, 8-49-7 Miwa Nagano-shi, Nagano 380-8525 Japan michio@nagano-kentan.ac.jp 4 Takushoku University Hokkaido College, 4558 Memu Fukagawa-shi, Hokkaido 074-8585 Japan sugimoto@takushoku-hc.ac.jp Abstract. In this paper, we developed a new board game system on a PC that feels like a real board game. The main improvements of this system are the tac- tile guide, the finger input interface, and an output method using vibrating stim- uli. These improvements allow players to grasp the layout better than previous systems. We evaluate the system using the Othello game. As the result, we see that visually impaired persons can play the Othello game. Keywords: visually impaired person, tactile guide, speech guide, auditory dis- play, vibrating stimulus. 1 Introduction Recently, in order to improve the quality of life for visually impaired persons, various communication systems using the personal computer (PC) are studied [1], [2]. As the related study, there are many things that use the hearing and tactile senses like a screen reader [3] and tactile display [4]. Games are one of the communication methods used. Board games are fun not only for sighted persons but also for visually impaired persons. There are two kinds of board games for people with visual impairment: real board games and computer games [5], [6]. The former often use tactile sense, the latter often use hearing. Many board games use an 8 x 8 layout, so we need to grasp the layout of the board. The layout of real boards can be recognized by touching. In contrast, the advantages of computer games are that we can play the game through the Internet and can play against a computer opponent.