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Landmark-enhanced route itineraries for navigation of blind pedestrians in urban environment

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Abstract

Visual impairment limits a person mainly in the ability to move freely and independently. Even with many navigation aids and tools currently on the market, almost one-third of the visually impaired do not travel alone without a guide. One of the most useful aids are the landmark-enhanced itineraries of the route created by orientation and mobility specialists. We describe the design of a system, which is based on a specific, efficiently collected geographical data, and which automatically generates human-like landmark-enhanced itineraries for navigation of visually impaired users. The studies we conducted (quantitative n = 16, qualitative n = 6) showed usability and efficiency of the system. We also provide a set of design recommendations to increase the usability of the system along with specific examples of usage of particular landmarks. Moreover, we report on 14-day long diary study (n = 3) where visually impaired participants used the system freely throughout the city center with a success rate of 84% without using GPS. Finally, based on an over-the-phone survey (n = 18), we provide a methodology to identify the essential area, where geographical data needs to be collected to enable visually impaired pedestrians to travel around the city center efficiently.

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Source: Central European Data Agency, a.s. (CEDA)

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Notes

  1. ArcGIS—www.arcgis.com/.

  2. WCAG—www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php.

  3. WAI-ARIA—www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria.

  4. Tableau—www.tableau.com.

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Acknowledgements

This research has been supported by the project Navigation of handicapped people funded by grant no. SGS16/236/OHK3/3T/13 (FIS 161 – 1611663C000).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Graphics and Interaction, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Karlovo namesti 13, 121 35, Prague 2, Czech Republic

    Jan Balata, Zdenek Mikovec & Pavel Slavik

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Correspondence to Jan Balata.

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Appendix A: Random variables

Appendix A: Random variables

We classified the problems (or disruptions) observed during the Comparative Study (see Sect. 4) into four categories: Collisions with objects \(27\times \), Interference of passerby people \(11\times \) (offering help \(5\times \) or grabbing and dragging \(6\times \)), Disruptions of the senses \(17\times \), and Stress \(3\times \). We consider Collisions with object and Interference of passerby people—offering help as common problems \(31\times \). We consider Interference of passerby people—grabbing and dragging, Disruption of senses and Stress as serious problems \(27\times \). Table 6 contains full list of problems occurred during the comparative study classified into corresponding classes.

Table 6 Occurrence of problems (disruptions) participants experienced during the experiment classified into categories according to type and severity
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Balata, J., Mikovec, Z. & Slavik, P. Landmark-enhanced route itineraries for navigation of blind pedestrians in urban environment. J Multimodal User Interfaces 12, 181–198 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12193-018-0263-5

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