Email System for Visually Impaired People

Email System for Visually Impaired People

Nivedita Bhore
Department of Information Technology,
Vidyavardhini’s College of Engineering and Technology,
Vasai, India.
Komal Acharekar
Department of Information Technology,
Vidyavardhini’s College of Engineering and Technology,
Vasai, India.
Shraddha Mahala
Department of Information Technology,
Vidyavardhini’s College of Engineering and Technology,
Vasai, India.
Dr.
Madhavi Waghmare
Department of Information Technology,
Vidyavardhini’s College of Engineering and Technology,
Vasai, India.
Abstract— In Today’s world conversation over long miles has
become progressive and very efficient due to communication
technologies connected to internet. But people having defects
regarding their eyesight and find difficult to access these
communication technologies. There are many techniques made
for the visually impaired people such that they can equally
acquire all the facilities to technologies like general people and
many features are expanding for these visually impaired humans.
All the people on a job requires to access mails in some or the
other way therefore, objective behind the paper is to build a
desktop application which will be beneficial for visually
challenged person to avail every utility that an ordinary person
uses to send mails and receive emails efficiently without involving
any third entity. This project aims to create an application that
has minimal use of keyboard and no use of mouse at all. All the
functioning takes place through text-to-speech and speech-to-text
conversations. This project will equally be used for the people
who are blind. The project focuses on sending and receiving the
mails. Every process is interactive and done by accepting few
commands such as compose mail and receive mail.
Keywords— Text to speech converter, Speech to text converter,
email service for blind people, keyboard shortcuts.
I. INTRODUCTION
All over the world, Internet is booming as the best
invention. Today’s modern era is digital and also witnesses
changes frequently along with applying the changes
accordingly. Digital instruments are cheap in cost and can be
used by anyone easily. Individuals who are not physically
perfect are deprived of using these technologies. People with
weak eyesight or visually challenged people are beneficial
from special projects like voice based email systems. Emails
have been the most efficient manner for communication.
There are many communication methods available but email
is the most widely used method for every field like education
as well as business sector. Not every person on the planet is
aware about email services. To know what is displayed on the
screen, a person should have a clear vision. If the user is not
able to see the screen then usage of internet is completely
pointless for the visually defected people. There are many
people who posses visual challenges and wish to avail all the
services normal people are accessing hence to overcome all
these problems we are developing this project in order to
make email facility available easily to the blind people for
using it in freely manner. The person using this project need
not keep in mind all the key locations. Ever action will be
based on command interactions. Additionally the blind person
should not worry about which mouse operations should be
performed to use a particular service as the system will accept
and consider the commands through voice itself. This project
proposes a python based desktop application, designed
especially for visually impaired people. This application
administers a voice based emailing service where they can
read and send emails on their own, without any guidance
through their g-mail accounts. Here, the users can use certain
keywords that will perform certain actions for e.g. Read,
Send, Compose Mail etc.
The Voice mail system can be used by a visually impaired
person to account mail services efficiently and frequently
Therefore, in order to access mails the visually impaired
person need not take any help through third party applications
as they aren’t safe. This application is a python language
based desktop application for visually challenged people
using speech to text and text to speech modules so that every
person will be able to control their own accounts through
voice inputs only. This system will always prompt the user to
perform desired functions based on their corresponding
commands. The main reason behind we developing this
project is because the use of keyboard is partially removed
and mouse operations are not frequently used, many
operations will be based on voice only.
II. MOTIVATION
This system is created to help the blind or partially blind
people and the people who are illiterate . This is the main and
important motive of this system. This project is an application
for a visually impaired user or an illiterate user who wishes to
use the email services just like any other normal human being.
This system will help in overcoming some of the drawbacks
that were earlier faced by the visually impaired people in
accessing emails.
Only certain keyboard shortcuts will be used in this system.
Other than that, the use of keyboard is eliminated. This is the
major advantage since there is no need to remember the
location of keys on the keyboard. The main motive behind this
is that the user need not to remember the functions on keyboard
International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
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Volume 9, Issue 3
Special Issue – 2021
286
since all operations will be performed on the basis of voice.
The goal of this system is to make the system more user
friendly and efficient to use[9]. Due to the voice based system,
the user can easily operate the system and will be able to grab
more speed and precision while working on it. Also without
wasting time or energy user can use this system.
Pages on internet are majorly designed in a way which can
be used and accessed by sighted people. The main motive of
web page designers is to convey the information to web users
in such a manner that is attractive as well as convenient.
However such construction of a
web
page
is not always
efficient or user friendly for a blind of less eye-sighted
person
or an illiterate person. The main motive of
the project is to
address this issue.
The main motive
of designing this different browser
application
is to construct a framework with the required tools
to help visually impaired people to browse the web easily.
III.
EXISTING
SYSTEMS.
There are a total number of 4.3
billion email accounts
which are created on different mail sites
worldwide
until 2019
and
there will be estimated 4.5
billion accounts or even more
by the end of 2020. This count suggests that emails are the
most used form of communication
in today’s world. The
normally available mail services on internet, that we use in our
day to day life cannot be used by visually impaired people.
This problem is because these applications do not provide any
facility or service so that the person using it can hear out the
content of the screen. As
the visually impaired people cannot
visualize what is present
on the screen,
they cannot make out
where to click on the screen in order to perform the required
operations. For a visually impaired
person or an illiterate
person who cannot read or write, using a computer or any
application on the computer for the first time is not that
convenient as it is for a normal user even if it is user friendly.
Although nowadays there are many screen readers available in
the market, still these people face some minor issues. Screen
readers reads out whatever content is there on the screen, and to
perform those operations
the person will have to use keyboard
shortcuts as mouse locations cannot be tracked by the screen
readers. This means there are two problems; one that the user
cannot make use of mouse pointer as it is completely
inconvenient if the pointer location cannot be tracked and
second is that the user should be very well versed with the
locations of the keys on the keyboard as to where each and
every key is located. A user who is new to the computer cannot
use these services as they are not able to remember all the keys
on the keyboard.
Another drawback that occurs in it is that the screen readers
reads out the content in sequential manner i.e line to line and
therefore the user will be able to understand the contents on the
screen only if they are in simple HTML format. Therefore the
new advanced web pages nowadays which do not follow this
paradigm will face issues.
All these are some drawbacks of the existing systems
available in the market, to which we will be trying to
come
with a solution in the system
that
we are developing.
IV.
PROPOSED
SYSTEM.
The proposed system is based on a completely unique idea
and is not like the existing email systems available. The most
important aspect that was considered and has been kept in the
mind while developing this system is user accessibility
i.e user
friendliness. A web based system is said to be perfectly
accessible only if it can be used efficiently without any issues
by all types of people, no matter whether the people are able,
illiterate or visually impaired. The current existing systems for
email services do not provide the user with the facility of ease
of
accessibility. Therefore the system that we are developing is
completely different from the current existing systems. Unlike
the existing systems which majorly focuses on emphasizing
more of user friendliness for normal users, our proposed system
focuses more on user friendliness for all types of users which
includes normal people, visually impaired people, blind people
as well as illiterate
people.
This entire system is based on speech-to-text and text-tospeech
majorly. When the user runs the application, welcome
page will be displayed.
The credentials of the user will be already stored in the
system by the developer. Hence the user will not need to keep
logging in to the application every time. The welcome page is
where the assistant will prompt a command asking the user to
choose whether he/she wants to compose a mail or read the
mails in the inbox. After selecting the required category the
user can compose a mail by providing the receiver’s email
address, subject and body message through voice inputs. On
the other hand, the assistant will read the emails received in the
inbox section after asking the user whether it should read the
email or it should not.
The voice engine will keep prompting the user as to
what operation is to be performed based on the action. The user
just has to use headphones for speaking and listening and upon
hearing the prompt for the action he wishes to perform
[3]; he
should speak the desired operations through voice inputs.
Once the user is done with the particular module, he can return
to the Home page by following the commands given by the
assistant.
One of the important advantage of this system is that user
need not require to use the
mouse
since all the operations will
be
mostly
based on voice commands and certain keyboard
shortcuts at some places.
Therefore the user does not need to
worry about the location of the mouse pointer at all. Which
type of keyboard shortcut click will perform which operation
will already stored in the system. This proposed system will be
easily accessible to nearly all types of users as it is just based
on simple keyboard shortcuts
and speech conversion and there
is absolutely no need to locate the mouse pointer on the screen.
Also because of assistant, the people who are unable to read
and write need not require to worry as they can hear the
prompting done by the system and perform respective actions.
Also the idea focuses on providing basic functionalities like
compose, send, receive, check inbox and along with advance
feature like Voice based operation, Search Mail, provision for
voice as well as text. Every basic functionality will be provided
International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
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Volume 9, Issue 3
Special Issue – 2021
287
to the user to send and receive the emails through voice based
operation.
V.
LITERATURE
SURVEY
In this section, we have reviewed some references to
describe our project.
In the paper “VoiceMail Architechture in Desktop and
Mobile Devices for the Blind People” 2012 [1], Inbox and
compose mail options are made. The project is built to record
voice and which will be decoded in the receiver’s side.
This paper
“Email Access By Visually Impaired” 2013 [2],
uses web accessibility, text to
speech synthesizer, text analysis
module and uses screen magnification module for the visually
impaired people to read the details correctly.
The paper
“Voice based email system
for blinds” 2015 [3],
the system will prompt the user to perform the required actions
and will give certain functions.
This paper
“Voice
Based Email for Blind People” 2017 [4],
uses speech to text converter, text to speech converter and
word recognition for sending and receiving the mails.
This paper “Voice Based E-mail System” 2018 [5], uses
voice recognition for sending and reading received mails. It
also has login feature for user authentication.
This paper “Voice Based E-mail System
for Blind People”
2017 [6], creates a desktop application
that performs sending
and receiving of emails through voice based inputs.
This paper “Voice -Based E-mail(V-Mail) for blind” 2015
[7], is a desktop application which is voice based and
completely eliminates the use of mouse and presents an easy
to use GUI.
This paper “Voice based e-mail Systems for Blinds”
2016
[8], uses voice recognition and TTS and STT for voice
commands. It maintains a database where user is validated and
mails of the user are stored. It has sections like Inbox and
compose.
The paper “Voice Recognition System for the Visually
Impaired-Virtual Cognitive Approach” 2008 [9], In this paper
the visually impaired person can interact with the system with
the use of microphones. For the interaction there are some
modules that are used like Text-to-voice module, Automatic
speech recognition module[12]. Emails are read by the system
where the system reads the title then the sender for the user.
Users choose the email by responding “Yes” and the system
read the content of email for users.[9][10] In the paper “Voice based Email System Application for
Blind and Visually Impaired Peoples” 2017 [10], Proposed
System: The proposed system depends on speech command
based systems far from the existing mail systems[11].As
opposed to latest system that highlight a more on user
friendliness of traditional users, this system pivot a lot on user
friendliness of all diversity of individuals as well as normal
people and visually impaired individuals.[9][10][11][12] Methodology: Here in this paper the application makes use of
IMAP protocol for retrieving the email content from the mail
server. This protocol is used by email users to gain email
messages from a mail server .[12] Implementation: Depending
on the commands given to the system, the system performs the
requested action for the users. In sending activity , if a user
says “SEND”, the application considers it as an instruction to
compose an email.
The application asks for speech instruction,
if the user says “READ” or “RECEIVE” , it performs the
actions according to the users request.
In this paper
“Voice Based Mail Attachment For Visually
challenged
People” 2017
[11] ,the user enters the web page by
“Username” and “Password” with the
help of keyboard,
mouse and screen recorder.
The paper “V-Mail (Voice Based E-Mail Application)”
2019 [12]. This system covers the forecast both normal
individual as well as visually impaired group. The email
content is sent using SMTP Protocol and they are fetched from
the server using IMAP protocol.
VI.
METHODS.
A.
Text
to Speech API:
It converts normal text messages into speech format. A
normal text can be heard through audio file. The input is a
plain text and the output is
in audio format which can only
be heard.
Each word can be heard through sound and the blind
person can successfully be able to read the whole message
using this API.
B.
Speech Recognition:
It is used for individuals to perform actions through voice
instead of using keyboard. This software takes input through
voice and saves in mp3 format. After saving, it performs
particular task and delete after the function is over.
The user
dictates the messages and the system accepts the message in
voice format.
C.
IMAP:
Internet message access protocol is used to fetch mails
from Gmail so that the receiver can read the messages easily.
The received messages are in the gmail itself IMAP helps the
user to connect to gmail.
D.
SMTP:
Simple mail transfer protocol helps to connect to Gmail. It
helps in composing mails.
It also acts as a connection to gmail
which helps in send of mails.
E.
TKINTER:
TKINTER is a python feature that is used to create
frontend. Forms can be easily made using this feature.
Authentication of a user becomes very easy.
International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
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Special Issue – 2021
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VII.
ARCHITECTURE.
Fig.1 Architecture
Diagram
The Architecture of this project is divided into three parts –
Hardware Requirements, Software Requirements and
Working. Let’s us take a look about each section in detail.
For
implementing this project, we will require hardware
Products
like a desktop for running the application and a
Speaker mic
for communicating
with the application.
The software is being
developed using coding languages like Python and will be
using tkinter.
Also Google Speech API’s will be used for
communication. Also Speech
to text conversion will be done
while taking inputs from the user.
VIII.
DESIGN.
Design:
A.
User Interface Design:
Here the complete goal of website is to focuses
more on
ability to
understand prompting of the system rather than the
look and impression of the
system as the system is mainly
developed for the visually impaired people,
to whom the look
of the system won’t be important as the ability of
understanding the
prompting would be more important.
B.
Database Design:
The system manages
a database for user authorization and
accumulates mails of the user. There are some database tables
that store data of Inbox, Sent-Mail and Trash etc.
these
schemas will store all mails of the respective service that
belongs to that particular user.
C.
System Design:
As above shown in figure, it is the level-2
data flow diagram
(DFD) which gives complete detailed flow of
events
and the
processes in the system. As we can see all operations are
performed by voice and some shortcut keys click events only.
At some
places voice input is needed.
IX.
IMPLEMENTATION.
This system is presently being developed by us. The
following section are the ones that are already
developed.
Their working is as follows:
A. Home Page
This is the main and first module of the system. Any user who
wishes
to use the system should first register to gain username
and password.
Once the login is done
successfully, from home
page the user can perform
operations that the user waits to
perform. The options
available are as follows:
1. Compose mail
2. Received mail
3. End session
Fig.2 Homepage
By using shortcut keys will provide the operation that
needs to
be performed for the service. All these functionalities are
implemented. The complete run-through of this system is
given as follows:
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Fig.3 Start Flow
B. Login:
As the registration is done the user can login to the system. In
this section it will ask the user to provide the username and
password. This will be accepted in voice. Voice conversion
will be done to text format and user will be told to certify
whether the details are entered correctly or not. If the entry is
done correctly database will be checked for entry, and if the
entry is not correct it will again ask for password. As the user
will speak up the details the system will again confirm by
prompting alphabetically. As the user is authorized it will be
directed to homepage.
Fig.4 Login Page
C. Compose mail:
This is one of the main and most important options provided
by the mail services to the user. Since the system is for
visually challenged people and keyboard operations are
decreased, composing mail would only be done on speech
input. User can directly give message that needs to be
propagated and can send it. This speech message will be
stored [1] in the form of array and once the message is sent
then the stored file will be replaced by another voice message
that the sender will send.
Fig.5 Compose Section
F. Inbox:
This option helps the user to view all the mails that has been
received to his/her account by
giving commands to the system.
The user can listen to mails
whatever he/she wants to listen by
performing the click operation
specified by the prompt.
Whenever a mail is pointed the system will read the sender
and the subject of the latest mail. Accordingly user will decide
whether
the mail needs to be read or not or it should be go to
the next mail.
Fig.6 Inbox Section
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Fig.7 Receive Section
X.
CONCLUSION.
In this paper we have proposed a web based application
which will help the visually impaired people
to access the
email services easily and efficiently. This system will help in
overcoming certain issues that the visually impaired people had
to face earlier in using email systems. Also we have completely
eliminated
the concept of using keyboard shortcuts and also the
use of screen readers which may help in reducing the stress
load of remembering the location of the keys on the keyboard
and so that user can use this system efficiently.
The user is only supposed to follow the instructions which
will be given by Google speech technology.
Along with this,
the user might need to give the information through voice
inputs wherever mentioned. Also android mobile phone are not
majorly used by visually impaired people since it is difficult for
them to operate it. Therefore we are creating a web based
application which works on only mouse clicks and voice
inputs.
For further implementations, we can use external
hardware devices like biometric sensors for user authentication
to make the application more
secure.
XI.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.
This project is an outcome of teamwork of all members of
the group without which knowledgeable undertaking would
not have succeeded. Here we
take this opportunity to thank all
those who have contributed in the successful completion of
this project. We are highly indebted to Dr. Madhavi
Waghmare for her excellent
guidance and
constant supervision
also
providing
necessary information regarding the project and
also for her
support in
completing the project.
This project is
an outcome of teamwork of all members of the group without
which knowledgeable undertaking would not have succeeded.
Here we
take this opportunity to thank all those who have
contributed in the successful completion of this project.
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