Paper Info
Title
Iterative Design of Sonification Techniques to Support People with Visual Impairments in Obstacle Avoidance
Abstract
AbstractObstacle avoidance is a major challenge during independent mobility for blind or visually impaired (BVI) people. Typically, BVI people can only perceive obstacles at a short distance (about 1 m, in case they are using the white cane), and some obstacles are hard to detect (e.g., those elevated from the ground), or should not be hit by the white cane (e.g., a standing person). A solution to these problems can be found in recent computer-vision techniques that can run on mobile and wearable devices to detect obstacles at a distance. However, in addition to detecting obstacles, it is also necessary to convey information about them in real time. This contribution presents WatchOut, a sonification technique for conveying real-time information about the main properties of an obstacle to a BVI person, who can then use this additional feedback to safely navigate in the environment. WatchOut was designed with a user-centered approach, involving four iterations of online listening tests with BVI participants in order to define, improve and evaluate the sonification technique, eventually obtaining an almost perfect recognition accuracy. WatchOut was also implemented and tested as a module of a mobile app that detects obstacles using state-of-the-art computer vision technology. Results show that the system is considered usable and can guide the users to avoid more than 85% of the obstacles.
Year
DOI
Venue
2021
10.1145/3470649
ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Turn-by-turn navigation, orientation & mobility, navigation assistance
Journal
14
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
4
1936-7228
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
8
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Giorgio Presti100.34
Dragan Ahmetovic200.34
Mattia Ducci311.79
Cristian Bernareggi400.34
Luca A. Ludovico500.34
Adriano Baratè600.34
Federico Avanzini700.34
Sergio Mascetti800.34