iFree: PDA based MP3 Player for the Blind

iFree was created as a course project for CPSC 544: Human Computer Interaction at the University of British Columbia in Term 1 of 2006-2007.

The concept behind iFree is that mainstream MP3 players are inaccessible to people with visual disabilities. Since these devices are intended listening, there is no reason that they can't be accessible to visually disabled people. To correct this problem, the 3 man iFree team designed and developed a prototype MP3 player that is entirely audio driven.

In addition to designing and prototyping our audio based MP3 player, we conducted a thorough user study with visually disabled subjects. Our findings indicated that visually disabled users were fully capable of using iFree, and in almost all cases enjoyed their experience with the prototype.

Technical Details:

iFree was coded using eMbedded Visual C++ in conjunction with the PocketPC 2003 SDK. iFree-Sync, the desktop counterpart, was coded using C++ using the Visual Studio .NET 2003 IDE. In addition, the following libraries and tools were used:

The FMOD library for handling audio playback (http://fmod.org). This is a commercial library that requires a license for for-pay products, and is free for free products and projects.

 The CMU FLITE library for text-to-speech (http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/flite). This is an open-source package which is a cut-down version of a fuller text-to-speech package and is designed for embedded devices.