Blobby: how to guide a blind person

ABSTRACT

For the majority of blind people, walking in unknown places is a very difficult, or even impossible, task to perform, when without help. The adoption of the white cane is the main aid to a blind user's mobility. However, the major difficulties arise in the orientation task. The lack of reference points and the inability to access visual cues are its main causes. We aim to overcome this issue allowing users to walk through unknown places, by receiving a familiar and easily understandable feedback. Our preliminary contributions are in understanding, through user studies, how blind users explore an unknown place, their difficulties, capabilities and needs. We also analyzed how these users create their own mental maps, verbalize a route and communicate with each other. Structuring and generalizing this information, we were able to create a prototype that generates familiar and adequate instructions, behaving like a blind companion, one with similar capabilities that understands his "friend" and speaks the same language. We evaluated the system with the target population, validating our approach and orientation guidelines, while gathering overall user satisfaction.

References

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Index Terms

• Human-centered computing

  • Interaction design

    • Interaction design process and methods

      • User centered design