An interface to virtual environments for people who are blind using Wii technology ‐ mental models and navigation

Abstract

lindsay.evett@ntu.ac.uk, superski@sky.com, steven.battersby@ntu.ac.uk, david.brown@ntu.ac.uk *To whom correspondence should be addressed Brief biography for Dr Lindsay EvettLindsay is a lecturer in the Computing & Technology Team. Her research is on accessibility and assistive technology, especially with respect to Serious Games, and webbased content. She is a lecturer in Artificial Intelligence, and a member of Nottingham Trent University's working group on accessibility. She is a co-investigator on the GOET European project on serious educational games to develop prevocational skills in people with learning difficulties. Brief biography for Steven BattersbySteven is a software design engineer for the Interactive Systems Research group and has worked on numerous projects concerned with Serious Games and assistive technology. Steven is currently completing a PhD on adaptive, assistive technology. Brief biography for Allan RidleyAllan was recently awarded an MRes with distinction in Computer Science by Nottingham Trent University. He is just starting a PhD on accessible interactive systems. He has worked as an assistive technology trainer. Brief biography for Professor David BrownDavid was promoted from Reader to Professor of Interactive Systems for Social Inclusion in 2007. His research focuses on the application of virtual environments for the education of people with an intellectual impairment and for rehabilitation. His research on virtual environments for people with learning disabilities has been funded by a range of government agencies, by EPSRC and the EU. He is consortium leader for "Game on", to develop 3D role play games for the education and personal development of prisoners and those at risk of offending. He is the principle investigator for the GOET European project on serious educational games to develop prevocational skills in people with learning difficulties. Acknowledgements: This underlying research in games supports EU Leonardo Project GOAL.NET (UK/07/LLP-LdV/TOI-009)An interface to virtual environments for people who are blind using Wii technology -mental models and navigation ABSTRACT Accessible games, both for serious and for entertainment purposes, would allow inclusion and participation for those with disabilities. Research into the development of accessible games, and accessible virtual environments, is discussed. Research into accessible Virtual Environments has demonstrated great potential for allowing people who are blind to explore new spaces, reducing their reliance on guides, and aiding development of more efficient spatial maps and strategies. Importantly, Mioduser (2005, 2008) have demonstrated that, when exploring virtual spaces, people who are blind use more and different strategies than when exploring real physical spaces, and develop relatively accurate spatial representations of them. The present paper describes the design, development and evaluation of a system in which a virtual environment may be explored by people who are blind using Nintendo Wii devices, with au...

Virtual Environment System in Support of a Traditional Orientation and Mobility Rehabilitation Program for People Who Are Blind

“…The use of haptic VEs, which typically include audio, and their potential for supporting learning and rehabilitation training has also been reported for people who are blind (Evett, Battersby, Ridley, & Brown, 2009;Iglesias et al, 2004;Lahav & Mioduser, 2004;Lécuyer et al, 2003;Parente & Bishop, 2003;Semwal & Evans-Kamp, 2000;Simonnet, Guinard, & Tisseau, 2006;Tzovaras, Nikolakis, Fergadis, Malasiotis, & Stavrakis, 2004). Among other things, these studies showed that the users were able to recognize shapes and objects and determine the position of virtual objects in the VE.…”

“…Previous research on using VE by people who are congenitally or adventitiously blind has presented individuals' successful performance of orientation tasks in the VE and transference of this spatial knowledge to real space (Evett et al, 2009;Sánchez et al, 2008;. To determine the efficacy of VE, further research and development is needed.…”

Using Wii technology to explore real spaces via virtual environments for people who are blind

“…This research is part of collaborative research between research groups from Nottingham Trent University and Tel Aviv University, and continues and extends the research of Evett (Evett et al, 2008;2009). In this research study we used the Nintendo Wiimote as a pre-planning aid for exploring VEs that represent RSs (see Figure 1).…”

“…The most recent generations of haptic devices transmit feeling through direct contact with the virtual object (e.g., SensAble Phantom Desktop, Immersion Corp.'s CyberForce, Novint Falacon, and Nintendo's Wii). Stemming from the development of these devices, applications have been researched and developed especially for people who are blind, including identification of texture and shape recognition (Semwal and Evans-Kamp, 2000;Sjotrom and Rassmus-Grohn, 1999), mathematical learning environments (Karshmer and Bledsoe, 2002;Van Scoy et al, 2000;Van Scoy et al, 2005;Yu et al, 2001), and acquisition of spatial information (Evett et al, 2009;Lahav and Mioduser, 2004;Sánchez and Sáenz, 2010). Researchers have shown that by exploring VEs that represent RSs, people who are blind can construct a useful cognitive map about previously inexperienced spaces.…”

Testing Two Tools for Multimodal Navigation

“…Examples include Tsukada and Yasymua [2], Frey [3], Amemiya et al [4], Spath et al [5], Loomis et al [6], Kramer et al [7], and Evett et al [8]. But, as is often the case, the visual modality has drawn most attention when researching new interfaces for navigation.…”