Cleo

HMW: envision a browsing experience for a non-visual, screenless internet through Trala? 

Solution: Cleo is a hand-held, screen-free device that enables users to easily navigate audio websites. The gestures for Cleo are also compatible with the Myo for screen-free and hands-free users. For visually impaired or screen free users, Cleo enables an entirely new way to surf and skim audio websites developed through Trala. 

Cleo was inspired by the main pain-point of screen-readers: how might we reimagine the experience of browsing the content of a website in a manner that is inherently non-visual and screen free, so that visually impaired or screen-less users experience all the richness of the site without a loss of fidelity to the content? While the normal experience of the internet is limited to the two-dimensional actions of point-and-click, scroll, and visual cues, Cleo brings Trala’s audio browsing experience to life by imagining a screen-free experience of the web. 

Cleo was designed to enable a specific set of gestures that screen readers make difficult. Firstly, it allows a user to skim through content summaries as one might visually skim the text on a page. Secondly, it enables a user to ‘skim’ the actions and links on a page in a separate menu, which reimagines the spatially-situated “call-to-action” buttons on websites. Finally, while a screen reader would use an automated voice to read through chunks of text, Cleo works with Trala’s developer kit to provide users with a podcast-quality sound experience complete with branding through background music and human voice acting. On the Myo, Cleo allows the user to scroll through the page for content, using hand gestures while performing tasks that require both hands like cooking. Using the wii-inspired remote control, Cleo allows users to navigate the content non-linearly using click-wheel-like sliders and wii-inspired trigger buttons.