The Marvin shell is a simple, custom-built home screen for eyes-free use.* Marvin provides a single-touch user interface that not only provides access all Android applications on your device but also easy access to some Eyes-Free ‘mini apps’ such as an application that announces the time and date, or your current location.
The Stroke Dialer is also used as an alternative to the QWERTY keyboard layout in certain Eyes-Free applications such as the Marvin shell. Instead of thinking of the Stoke Dialer as a keypad, think of it as a compass with eight compass points: North, South, East and West, and North-East, North-West, South-East and South-West.
One of the difficulties that people who are blind or vision impaired are faced with when using a touchscreen interface is that there must be some form of feedback to replace the visual cues that are necessary to use a touchscreen. Devices such as the Apple iPhone have resolved this by using text-to-speech technology to announce objects on the interface.
In the words of T.V. Raman, a research scientist at Google and one of the lead developers for Project Eyes-Free:
Project Eyes-Free is “a collection of applications that turn your Android phone into… a completely eyes-free, single-touch, one-handed communication device.”
