When someone suffers from low vision or visual impairment it is harder to use a keyboard. The small keys aren’t very visible, the black layout and white characters don’t pop out, and the use of a keyboard can be frustrating. But since its use has become so common and you can’t avoid using a keyboard anymore, there should be an easy and better solution for. So that frustration no longer occurs, and everyone can easily use a keyboard.
High contrast keyboard
With this thought in our heads, we started the developing process of a keyboard with high color contrast, extra visible keys, and more tactile feedback. After a lot of research, conversations with the visual impaired and feedback we made the best possible keyboard for these special needs.
ClearKeys keyboard
Alt ClearKeys keyboard is a keyboard with a black and yellow color scheme. The keys of ClearKeys keyboard are yellow. The background and characters on the keys are black. We used the most visible font and printed them in extra bold on the keys. The layout of this extra visible keyboard is simplified and clean. For this keyboard, we used:
- Icons instead of text
- Abbreviations instead of fully written functions
- And we printed multimedia signs on the casing instead of on the keys.
Extra visible keycaps
For Alt ClearKeys keyboard we selected mattified, chocolate keycaps that are a bit concave. The concave-shaped keycaps give more tactile feedback to the user of this keyboard. On keys F&J you will find the pathfinders, we made these pop out more so that they can give better finger guidance. For the indicator light, which are normally white, we selected a bright red color. The red colored ones are very visible, so you can always see if num lock, scroll lock, or caps lock is on.
But… this is not our only keyboard that is extra visible and specially made for people with low vision or visual impairment. We present to you: Clevy Contrast Keyboard!
From kids keyboard to Clevy Contrast keyboard
At first, we made a keyboard with extra big keys and large characters on the keys. This colorful design was specially developed for kids in education. After some time, we discovered that a lot of people with low vision or visual impairment used the “kids keyboard”. This gave us the idea to make a redesign. And our white and black color scheme keyboard was born.
White and black color scheme keyboard
Clevy Contrast Keyboard has 30 % bigger keys than on a regular keyboard, and the characters on these keys are 4 times bigger. We selected these keys because they are easy to hit and very visible. We arranged the keys on this keyboard vertically to improve the positioning of the hand and to make its layout less cluttered. The white and black color scheme draws attention to the qwerty area, and we left out a lot of keys for a clean look.
The low vision an visual impaired keyboard
In conclusion, we made these products to help people who get frustrated using a normal keyboard, because they can’t see the keys or the characters on them. We thought out a lot of features for people with low vision or visual impairment. Are you interested in one of these products? You’ll find our extra visible products below!
