Understanding Experiences of Blind Individuals in Outdoor Nature

Abstract

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.

Opportunities for Supporting Self-efficacy Through Orientation & Mobility Training Technologies for Blind and Partially Sighted People

“…The multisensorial aspect of O&M learning was also evident in our findings -BPS people use sensory cues from the environment (olfactory, auditory, and tactile) to develop a rich understanding of their surroundings [4,5]. These senses are an integral part of O&M training and navigation beyond training.…”

Audio AR to support nature connectedness in people with visual disabilities

“…Nature connectedness: How augmenting the natural environment with contextual descriptions [8] can improve nature connectedness of BPSP. Our findings from previous work [3,4] show that BPSP enjoy learning about and engaging with the natural elements in open spaces. We will measure how localized audio will encourage engaging with nature by measuring the number of interactions with the environment (i.e.…”

“…In phase 1, we conducted qualitative studies to develop an in-depth understanding of the needs of BPSP in outdoor mobility and how they engage with nature. We have completed this phase and have partially published our findings [3,4]. In the next phase, we aim to design an AAR system to support BPSP in exploring open spaces and connect with nature.…”

“…We have conducted formative qualitative studies including interviews, focus group, and qualitative survey questionnaire to examine the needs of BPSP when in open spaces (RQ1.1 and RQ1.2) [3,4]. We found that (1) verbal descriptions of the environment in addition to multisensory experience help BPSP explore and connect with nature (Figure 1), (2) social interaction was important and BPSP enjoyed co-creating a shared sensory experience with their companions.…”

Rethinking the Senses: A Workshop on Multisensory Embodied Experiences and Disability Interactions

“…Much of accessibility and assistive technologies focus on sensory substitution with the view of people's abilities as being constant. However, people's lives and therefore their needs are dynamic and changing -sometimes the transitions are small and vary on a daily basis, such as in the case of chronic pain where people have good days, where they have less pain and can get more done, and bad days where the pain can be debilitating [9]; at other times, the transitions can be life changing leading to a change in identity and sense of self and leading to new challenges [2], for example, a visually impaired new parent who now needs to manage a pram along with a cane. Therefore, designing for disabilities (or different abilities) needs to adapt to these dynamic and changing needs of people.…”