Mobile devices are currently used for an increasing number
of activities. However, their use is still a challenge for blind
users. Main problems are especially due to the interaction
via touchscreen and the lack of hardware keys for quickly
detecting or activating functions. In this paper we
investigated the use of the tactile channel to make
interaction with touch-based mobile devices easier for blind
users. After introducing common touchscreen usability
problems, we presented our proposal aimed at enriching the
user interface with haptic points to aid blind user
orientation on the main sections of a user interface. Starting
from two use cases, in order to set-up the proposed solution
we have developed a simple controller prototype, based on
Arduino open-hardware.