Mobile authentication is necessary for preventing unauthorized access to mobile devices with increasingly more private information. Despite significant progress in mobile authentication for sighted people, secure and usable mobile authentication for people with visual impairment remains largely under-explored. This project is to develop, prototype and evaluate novel secure and usable mobile authentication techniques for people with visual impairment.
There are three research thrusts. The first thrust is to develop CurveAuth, which authenticates a user based on his/her finger-drawing curves on the device screen. The second thrust is to develop TapAuth, which authenticates a user based on his/her sequence of rhythmic finger taps or slides on the device screen. The third thrust is to develop ShakeAuth, which authenticates a user based on his/her sequence of rhythmic shakes of the device. This research also includes a plan to prototype and evaluates the proposed techniques through comprehensive user experiments.
Successful development of the proposed techniques will have profound impact on allowing the visually impaired to fully embrace the power of modern mobile devices for improving their quality of life. Project outcomes will be made publicly available online in the forms of talks, publications, datasets, and Android/iOS apps.
