We have developed software that uses the R statistics software environment to automatically generate tactile graphs — i.e. graphs that can be read by blind people using their sense of touch. We released this software as a Web application to make it available to anyone, from anywhere. This Web application can automatically generate images for tactile graphs from numerical data in a CSV file. It is currently able to generate four types of graph — scatter plots, line graphs, bar charts and pie charts. This paper describes the Web application's functions, operating procedures and the results of evaluation experiments.

A survey was conducted on the use of ICT by visually impaired people. Among 304 respondents, 81 used smartphones and 44, tablets. Blind people used feature phones at a higher rate and smartphones and tablets at lower rates than people with low vision. The most popular smartphone model was iPhone and the most popular tablet model was iPad. While almost all blind users used the speech output accessibility feature and only a few of them used visual features, low vision users used both visual features such as Zoom, Large text, and Invert colors and speech output at high rates both on smartphones and tablets. The most popular text entry methods were different between smartphones and tablets. For smartphones flick and numeric keypad input were popular among low vision users while voice input was the most popular among blind users. For tablets a software QWERTY keyboard was the most popular among both blind and low vision users. The advantages of smartphones were access to geographical information, quick Web browsing, voice input, and extensibility for both blind and low vision users, object recognition for blind users, and readability for low vision users. Tablets also work as a vision aid for people with low vision. The drawbacks of smartphones and tablets were text entry and touch operation difficulties and inaccessible apps for both blind and low vision users, problems in speech output for blind users, and problems in readability for low vision users. Researchers and makers of operating systems (OS) and apps should assume responsibility for solving these problems.