Feasibility of using haptic directions through maps with a tablet and smart watch for people who are blind and visually impaired

Abstract

In order to navigate through the world, people who are blind and visually impaired typically use maps through either textual directions or tactile printouts. However, visual maps on a touchscreen are not accessible to this population. Two prototypes were designed to test users' ability to trace graphical lines and directions through maps on a touchscreen using haptic feedback from an Android smart watch and tablet. With the first prototype, we show that blind and visually impaired users had lower threshold than sighted users for determining the distance between two lines on a touchscreen, suggesting their enhanced ability to form representations of spatial distance from tactile vibrational cues. With the second prototype, we show that it is feasible for blind and visually impaired users to follow directions through graphical maps based on vibrational cues. We believe these results show that our prototypes have the potential to be effective in real-world applications.