Volume 2 Issue 4

Article Number: 23069

Enhancing Email Accessibility for Visually Impaired Individuals: A Voice-Based

Jaspreet Kaur*and Rohit Agnihotri

Department of Computer science and Engineering. JSS Academy of Technical Education, Affiliated to
AKTU, Noida, India 201301

Abstract

This paper presents an innovative, voice-based email system designed to improve email accessibility for visually impaired
individuals. The proposed system leverages Artificial Intelligence and speech recognition technologies to convert speech to
text and text to speech, enabling visually impaired individuals to send and receive emails using voice commands. The system
offers an intuitive user interface, secure authentication measures, and robust database architecture to ensure seamless and
secure user experience. Comparative analysis with traditional email systems reveals the superior functionality and inclusivity
of the proposed system. Despite certain limitations, future enhancements promise to further refine the system, paving the way
for a more inclusive digital communication environment.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Speech Recognition; Email Accessibility; Visually Impaired; Voice-Based Email System

1 Introduction

With rapid technological advancements and increased internet accessibility, numerous aspects of our lives have become
digitalized, including communication [1]. Indeed, communication is one field that has significantly evolved due to technological
advancements, making distance a minor factor [2]. One of the most reliable methods for transmitting essential information in
this digital age is email [3], a tool used globally. However, not everyone can equally access this beneficial tool. To access
the internet and use email, one must be able to see, a prerequisite that poses challenges to a significant number of visually
impaired or outwardly impeded individuals globally [4, 5]. Visual impairment restricts individuals from interacting with standard
web interfaces that typically require visual input and output [6, 7]. Unfortunately, this means that a significant number of people
are effectively cut off from the conveniences of email and the broader web [8–10]. Visually impaired individuals face difficulties
in sending and receiving emails, understanding the content provided by email, and using the existing email systems due to
their inherent visual interface [10–12]. In the current scenario, a visually impaired person has only one choice for sending an
email: they must verbally provide a third person with the entire content of the mail, who then types and sends the mail on their
behalf [13]. This practice, however, neither guarantees privacy nor empowers visually impaired individuals, instead reinforcing
their dependency on others. In light of these challenges, the authors propose a concept designed to make the digital world,
particularly email communication, more accessible to visually impaired individuals. This innovative solution allows a visually
impaired person to send and receive emails using voice commands rather than relying on visual devices or keyboards. The
proposed system aims to increase societal inclusivity and independence for visually impaired individuals, transforming the way
they interact with the digital world.
* Corresponding author: [email protected]
Received: 12 July 2023; Revised: 19 July 2023; Accepted: 20 July 2023; Published: 30 September 2023
© 2022 Journal of Computers, Mechanical and Management.
This is an open access article and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License.
DOI: 10.57159/gadl.jcmm.2.4.23069.

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 Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a crucial role in making this concept a reality. AI is a technology used to develop intelligent
systems and robots that mimic human intelligence [14]. Expert systems, natural language processing (NLP), machine vision,
and speech recognition are some applications of AI [15–17] that are particularly relevant to the proposed solution in this study.
NLP is the process of understanding and analyzing human language, such as English, by extracting information from keywords,
emotions, relationships, and concepts. This technology enables the transformation of voice commands into executable actions,
opening a world of opportunities for user interfaces [18, 19]. The proposed system in this article also uses AI to convert
speech to text (STT) and text to speech (TTS). Google’s Cloud STT service provides developers with a straightforward API for
converting audio to text. It includes robust neural network models that recognize over a hundred and twenty languages and
variations [20–22]. The TTS engine, conversely, reproduces spoken language from written text, making our system interact
with users in a natural, human-like way [23]. This technology allows computers to talk to users, making the system more
interactive and user-friendly.

2 Related Work

The proliferation of the internet and digitization has led to an exponential growth in the use of email as a mode of commu-
nication [24]. According to the Email Statistics Report of 2014-2018 by a tech market research firm based in Palo Alto, CA,
the number of email accounts worldwide has increased from 4.1 billion in 2014 to over 5.2 billion by the end of 2018 [25, 26].
This substantial growth underscores the prevalence of email as a primary mode of communication. However, it’s essential to
consider the challenges that prevent certain demographics from using this medium effectively. Based on studies conducted
by the Vision Loss Expert Group (VLEG), approximately 253 million people worldwide are visually impaired or blind, indicat-
ing that a large number of individuals are currently unable to access email [25, 27, 28]. Several existing systems provide
email access and management features to users via web services, thereby enhancing email’s popularity as a communication
medium [29]. However, most of these systems lack voice command or audio capabilities, rendering them unsuitable for visu-
ally impaired users. These traditional systems typically present information in textual format which isn’t accessible for visually
impaired individuals. Although some internet browsers have the capability to play music and video, users must first input
textual commands to request such media [7, 30]. This requirement of text-based interaction with web services is a significant
impediment for blind users. A noteworthy mention here is the role of screen readers in assisting visually impaired individuals
in accessing digital content. Screen readers interpret and read aloud the text displayed on a screen [31]. However, these tools
have significant limitations. They read the text sequentially [32], which can be inefficient for complex pages with lots of content.
Screen readers can only interpret content provided in basic HTML [33, 34]. Since many modern web pages use advanced
languages like CSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, and others to enhance appearance and usability, screen readers often fail to read
and understand these pages [35–37]. Some applications have been developed to aid visually impaired individuals, like mobile
apps capable of interpreting and reading data encoded as a barcode on a product [38–40]. Despite being innovative, these
solutions are device-specific and not universally applicable, limiting their use. Moreover, they are ineffective in scenarios like
accessing emails, which are primarily text-based. The crux of the issue lies in the fact that traditional systems do not offer
effective, intuitive, and inclusive solutions for visually impaired users. This gap is what the authors’ proposed system seeks to
address. Leveraging AI and speech recognition technologies, the proposed system aims to provide a voice-based interface for
email communication. This would significantly enhance email accessibility for visually impaired individuals, empowering them
to send and receive emails independently. The proposed system innovatively transforms the traditional, visual, and text-based
email experience into an auditory one, marking a substantial step forward in inclusivity in the digital world. The rest of the arti-
cle sections shall delve into the methods and technologies behind the proposed system, detailing how it aims to revolutionize
email usage for visually impaired individuals.

3 Methods

The methodology behind the proposed voice-based email system involves several crucial steps ranging from the design of
the system’s user interface, the architecture of the database, the overall system design, and the development of the mail
programming module. The system is subsequently implemented through various features including login, dashboard, send
mail, and inbox operations. Finally, the system ensures user authentication and data security.

3.1 Proposed work design

UI Design

The development process begins with designing the system’s user interface (UI). This includes the creation of all the web
content with which users will interact. An intuitive, user-friendly UI is critical for the success of the application, especially given
that it’s intended for visually impaired individuals. To make the system universally accessible, the design process employs
HTML5 and CSS3 to create a seamless, interactive, and responsive interface.

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Database architecture

As the system stores user credentials and email data, a reliable database is a necessity. The architecture of the database
includes the construction of various tables designed to store user credentials for authentication purposes and to hold user
emails securely. This database architecture serves as the backbone of the system, enabling the efficient storage and retrieval
of data.

System design

The system design incorporates all the modules necessary for the framework, including the Text-to-Speech (TTS) and Speech-
to-Text (STT) modules, and a Mail programming module. The design ensures that each module complements the others and
collectively contributes to the system’s seamless operation. In our system, the Text-to-Speech (TTS) conversion is handled
by the Google Text-to-Speech (GTTS) service, which provides high-quality and natural-sounding speech output. The working
of the GTTS algorithm is depicted in Figure 1 (a) and Figure 1 (b) provides an overview of the system design, showing the
connection between different modules in the proposed system.

(a) (b)

Figure 1: (a) Working principle of the Google Text-to-Speech (GTTS) algorithm; (b) Comprehensive system design highlighting
the interconnections between various system modules.

Mail Programming Module

As email becomes an increasingly important web service, many internet systems utilize Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
to send emails from one user to another [41, 42]. SMTP is responsible for sending emails, while the receiving end uses the
Post Office Protocol (POP) or Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) to fetch the message [41, 43]. Figure 2 (a) presents
the architecture of the proposed voice-based email system, illustrating how the various components interact with each other
and Figure 2 (b) illustrates how the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) works, which is a key component in the sending and
receiving of emails.

(a) (b)

Figure 2: (a) Architecture Diagram of Voice-based e-mail system; (b) Functioning mechanism of simple mail transfer protocol
(SMTP) in email transmission.

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3.2 Implementation

The workflow of the proposed system is depicted in Figure 3, which shows how users navigate the application and utilize its
features.

Login

Users start by logging into the system using voice commands. The user’s Gmail account is the primary method of authentica-
tion. If the login is successful, the user is granted access to the system’s features. The user interface of the login page, which
is the entry point to the system, is shown in Figure 4 (a).

Figure 3: Workflow diagram for Voice-based e-mail system.

Dashboard

Once logged in, the user is directed to the dashboard, which offers various options including ’Inbox’, ’Compose New Mail’,
’Sent Mail’, and ’Trash’. The system performs the corresponding actions when the user issues voice commands. Figure 4 (b)
displays the system’s dashboard, which offers a variety of options for the user to select using voice commands.

(a) (b)

Figure 4: (a) User-interface design of the Login page for the designed system; (b) Snapshot of the dashboard interface offering
multiple options to the user.

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Send Mail

When a user wants to send an email, they issue a voice command saying "SEND EMAIL". The system then opens a form
where the user fills out necessary details using voice commands. The system re-reads all the details to confirm their accuracy
before the user sends the email. The process of composing and sending an email using the designed system is depicted in
Figure 5a.

Inbox

The inbox feature reads out new emails to the user. The system alerts the user of any new email received and reads out the
senders’ names one by one. The user can then specify whose email they want to listen to first. Figure 5b shows the inbox
interface of the designed system, where incoming emails are listed.

(a) (b)

Figure 5: (a) Demonstration of voice-commanded drafting and sending of emails in the designed system; (b) The inbox
interface displaying incoming emails in the voice-based email system.

3.3 Authentication and Security

Authentication and security are critical elements of the system [44]. The system implements authentication by requiring users
to provide credentials, such as a username and password. These credentials are securely stored in a database and used
to verify the user’s identity each time they access the application. To ensure security, the system uses a hashing technique.
Hashing transforms passwords into a form that cannot be converted back to the original password, significantly enhancing the
security of the stored user credentials [45, 46]. The system uses common hashing algorithms like Message Digest Algorithms
(MD5) and Secure Hash Algorithms (SHA) [47] to maintain data integrity and security. Figure 6 represents the hashing
algorithm used in the system, a crucial component of the system’s security measures.

Figure 6: Depiction of the hashing algorithm used for enhancing user data Security in the System.

4 Results and Discussion

The proposed voice-based email system showcases clear advantages over traditional systems. A comparative analysis reveals
that the proposed model offers unique features not present in many of the industry’s established tools. The model introduces
voice command and control, facilitating use by visually impaired individuals, a significant improvement over traditional systems.
The model works seamlessly across all email platforms, which is a considerable advantage over other systems that may be
platform-specific. In terms of speech-to-text transcription, the Google Text-to-Speech (gTTS) service used in this system
provides robust performance. When compared to other services available in the market, gTTS stands out due to its versatility,
language support, and accuracy.

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 The reliability of gTTS in the proposed system contributes to its superior functionality, helping visually impaired users nav-
igate their emails effortlessly. The proposed voice-based email system has a broad scope for future enhancement. Potential
improvements could include the integration of various languages and access to additional email categories such as deleted
and spam emails. Incorporating a sign-language interpretation module could further increase the system’s adaptability, mak-
ing it even more robust and inclusive. The system finds its application primarily among visually impaired individuals, who
can utilize this Android application for a quick and efficient email experience. The system also serves as a beneficial tool for
individuals who have difficulty typing or navigating traditional email interfaces. Despite the promising features and applications
of the proposed system, some limitations exist. For instance, the system’s effectiveness can be hampered if the user struggles
with pronunciation, as the system’s operation relies heavily on voice commands. At present, the application is limited to work-
ing with Google accounts, restricting its use with other email platforms. Furthermore, the system currently lacks fingerprint
authentication, which could potentially compromise user security and privacy if they inadvertently disclose their passwords
and textual information. Addressing these limitations in future iterations of the system would significantly improve its effec-
tiveness and user-friendliness. The comparison of the proposed voice-based email system with traditional email systems is
demonstrated in Figure 7, highlighting the distinctive advantages of the proposed system.

Figure 7: Comparative analysis of the proposed voice-based email system and traditional email systems.

5 Conclusion

The proposed voice-based email system is an innovative and inclusive solution that enhances email accessibility for visually
impaired individuals. The system, leveraging Artificial Intelligence and speech recognition technologies, offers an auditory
email experience, enabling visually impaired individuals to independently send and receive emails. While traditional systems
rely heavily on visual input and output, this proposed system emphasizes the transformation of speech to text and text to
speech, making the system user-friendly and practical for visually impaired users. Furthermore, the system effectively elimi-
nates the need for keyboard shortcuts and screen readers, reducing the cognitive load of remembering keyboard shortcuts.
With a user-friendly interface and the added value of security features, this system marks a significant step in enhancing
the digital experience for visually impaired individuals. Although certain limitations currently exist, future enhancements and
modifications hold the promise to make the system more robust and adaptive, leading to a more inclusive digital world.

Declaration of Competing Interests

The authors declares that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.

Funding Declaration

This research did not receive any grants from governmental, private, or nonprofit funding bodies.

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Author Contribution

Jaspreet Kaur: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing- Reviewing and Editing, Project Administration; Rohit Agnihotri:
Methodology, Data curation, Investigation, Software, Validation; Writing–Original draft preparation.

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