ICANSEE: A SIM based application for digital inclusion of the visually impaired community

The digital divide is a term often used to describe differences between rich and poor communities. This term however is more encompassing than that, as it relates to the divide between those who have access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) and those who don't. Due to the small screen size, and resulting small font size and low contrast supported by most mobile phones, the visually impaired community fall into this category of having little access to this popular ICT. This paper presents iCanSee, a SIM based application built on a smart card Web server (SCWS), developed particularly for the visually impaired community. It provides a Web-based front end to the four most frequently used text-based communication tools on a mobile phone: the phone book; SMS; MMS; and email. iCanSee allows users to create their own CSS profiles, supporting changes to: background and font colour (for contrast); and font size. As the CSS file is stored on the SIM rather than the handset itself, when the user upgrades to a new mobile handset, all their settings are transferred along with other personal information such as their address book.