Gathering the Users’ Needs in the Development of Assistive Technology: A Blind Navigation System Use Case

Paredes, Hugo; Fernandes, Hugo; Martins, Paulo; Barroso, João

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-39194-1_10

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…There is a need to understand the experiences of blind and partially sighted individuals (BPSI) in nature and how they use technology to navigate, explore, and experience outdoor natural spaces to further investigate the role of technology as a facilitator for nature-based interactions for BPSI. Instead of focusing on supporting experience in the natural environment, the focus of existing assistive technologies (AT) for BPSI has been to facilitate independent navigation in built indoor and outdoor environment [2] [7]. Whilst these AT may be adapted for use in natural environments, their design does not support independent exploration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Experiences of Blind Individuals in Outdoor Nature

Bandukda

Singh

Bianchi-Berthouze

et al. 2019

Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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Research shows that exposure to nature has benefits for people's mental and physical health and that ubiquitous and mobile technologies encourage engagement with nature. However, existing research in this area is primarily focused on people without visual impairments and is not inclusive of blind and partially sighted individuals. To address this gap in research, we interviewed seven blind people (without remaining vision) about their experiences when exploring and experiencing the outdoor natural environment to gain an understanding of their needs and barriers and how these needs can be addressed by technology. In this paper, we present the three themes identified from the interview data; independence, knowledge of the environment, and sensory experiences.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Experiences of Blind Individuals in Outdoor Nature

Bandukda

Singh

Bianchi-Berthouze

et al. 2019

Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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“…use of colour and luminance contrast) amongst others. Some other studies involving participants with LV, explored a broader range of issues in different contexts, through challenges and use of other tools, elicited requirements for their mobility needs and assistive technologies based on other mediums such as auditory and vibrotactile [17,39,62,71,75,98]. For example, Jafri et al [39] interviewed participants with LV to understand their mobility challenges, their low vision aid usage and to obtain feedback on a depth-based obstacle avoidance system with audio feedback.…”

Section: Requirements For Technology-based Visual Mobility Aidsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Augmented Reality Glasses as an Orientation and Mobility Aid for People with Low Vision: a Feasibility Study of Experiences and Requirements

Htike

Margrain

Lai

et al. 2021

Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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People with low vision experience reduced mobility that affects their physical and mental wellbeing. With augmented reality (AR) glasses, there are new opportunities to provide visual and auditory information that can improve mobility for this vulnerable group. Current research into AR-based mobility aids has focused mainly on the technical aspects, and less emphasis has been placed on understanding the usability and suitability of these aids in people with various levels of visual impairment. In this paper, we present the results of qualitative interviews with 18 participants using HoloLens v1 and eight prototype augmentations to understand how these enhancements are perceived by people with low vision and how these aids should be adjusted to suit their needs. Our results suggested that participants with moderate vision loss could potentially perceive the most benefit from glasses and underlined the importance of extensive customizability to accommodate the needs of a highly varied low vision population. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing~Accessibility~Accessibility technologies•Social and professional topics~User characteristics~People with disabilities

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“…The lack of information that describes the physical environment is one of the core challenges for VIP navigation. This was mentioned by many participants as the need for a clear description for indoor and outdoor main landmarks that would help them build a mental map [38,39]. In their comprehensive study about computer vision algorithms for AT, Leo et al [40] mentioned several open challenges for developing AT for VIP.…”

Section: The Proposed Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Smart Context-Aware Hazard Attention System to Help People with Peripheral Vision Loss

Younis

Al-Nuaimy

Rowe

et al. 2019

Sensors

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Peripheral vision loss results in the inability to detect objects in the peripheral visual field which affects the ability to evaluate and avoid potential hazards. A different number of assistive navigation systems have been developed to help people with vision impairments using wearable and portable devices. Most of these systems are designed to search for obstacles and provide safe navigation paths for visually impaired people without any prioritisation of the degree of danger for each hazard. This paper presents a new context-aware hybrid (indoor/outdoor) hazard classification assistive technology to help people with peripheral vision loss in their navigation using computer-enabled smart glasses equipped with a wide-angle camera. Our proposed system augments users’ existing healthy vision with suitable, meaningful and smart notifications to attract the user’s attention to possible obstructions or hazards in their peripheral field of view. A deep learning object detector is implemented to recognise static and moving objects in real time. After detecting the objects, a Kalman Filter multi-object tracker is used to track these objects over time to determine the motion model. For each tracked object, its motion model represents its way of moving around the user. Motion features are extracted while the object is still in the user’s field of vision. These features are then used to quantify the danger using five predefined hazard classes using a neural network-based classifier. The classification performance is tested on both publicly available and private datasets and the system shows promising results with up to 90% True Positive Rate (TPR) associated with as low as 7% False Positive Rate (FPR), 13% False Negative Rate (FNR) and an average testing Mean Square Error (MSE) of 8.8%. The provided hazard type is then translated into a smart notification to increase the user’s cognitive perception using the healthy vision within the visual field. A participant study was conducted with a group of patients with different visual field defects to explore their feedback about the proposed system and the notification generation stage. The real-world outdoor evaluation of human subjects is planned to be performed in our near future work.

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Gathering the Users’ Needs in the Development of Assistive Technology: A Blind Navigation System Use Case

Cited by 11 publications

References 18 publications

Understanding Experiences of Blind Individuals in Outdoor Nature

Understanding Experiences of Blind Individuals in Outdoor Nature

Augmented Reality Glasses as an Orientation and Mobility Aid for People with Low Vision: a Feasibility Study of Experiences and Requirements

A Smart Context-Aware Hazard Attention System to Help People with Peripheral Vision Loss

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