BezelBraille: A Braille-Inspired Bezel-Guided Virtual Keyboard for Low Vision and Blind Users
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, MHCI.
Gulnar Rakhmetulla
HCI researcher and faculty member designing accessible and inclusive interaction techniques for mobile devices.
College of Technology & Engineering · Westcliff University
About Me
I am a faculty member at Westcliff University. My research focuses on human-computer interaction, particularly accessibility, inclusive design, and mobile interaction. I earned my Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Merced, an M.Sc. in Advanced Control and Systems Engineering from the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, and a B.Sc. in Information Systems from the International Information Technology University (IITU) in Kazakhstan.
Publications
2026
2025
2023
Crownboard: A One-Finger Crown-Based Smartwatch Keyboard for Users with Limited Dexterity
Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
2021
SwipeRing: Gesture Typing on Smartwatches Using a Segmented Qwerty Around the Bezel
Using Action-Level Metrics to Report the Performance of Multi-Step Keyboards
2020
TapStr: A Tap and Stroke Reduced-Qwerty for Smartphones
Senorita: A Chorded Keyboard for Sighted, Low Vision, and Blind Mobile Users
2018
Put a Ring on It: Text Entry Performance on a Grip Ring Attached Smartphone
Enabling Input on Tiny/Headless Systems Using Morse Code
News & Updates
Continued professional service as a reviewer for leading HCI venues, including CHI and MobileHCI.
BezelBraille, a Braille-inspired bezel-guided virtual keyboard for low vision and blind users, was accepted for publication in PACM HCI / MobileHCI 2026.
Received the Catalyst for Change Award at Westcliff University’s SOAR 2025 for work on inclusive and accessible mobile text input.
Published and presented Predicting Text Selection Time and Effort on Smartphones from Selection Characteristics at PETRA 2025.
Joined Westcliff University as a faculty member in the College of Technology & Engineering.
GeShort was published in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction and presented at MobileHCI 2023.
Presented Crownboard, a one-finger crown-based smartwatch keyboard for users with limited dexterity, at CHI 2023.
Earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Merced, with research focused on inclusive text entry and mobile interaction.
SwipeRing received the Michael A. J. Sweeney Best Student Paper Award at Graphics Interface 2021.
Published Using Action-Level Metrics to Report the Performance of Multi-Step Keyboards at Graphics Interface 2021.
Published TapStr, a tap-and-stroke reduced-QWERTY keyboard for smartphones, at ISS 2020.
Senorita, a chorded keyboard for sighted, low vision, and blind mobile users, was published at CHI 2020.