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Internal Navigation through Interval Vibration Impacts for Visually Impaired Persons: Enhancement of Independent Living

Teng, Xuan
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1471347436

Abstract Details

2016, MDES, University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Design.
Visually impaired people have high demands of mobility in both outdoor and indoor navigation. There’re many existing technologies, solutions and products for supporting their outdoor mobilities. While, there’s less designer or engineers pay much attention to the demand of internal navigation for the small community. Existing products or services mainly focus on detecting and avoiding obstacles. Seldom products or services can help visually impaired people to find a specific items or spaces. Technology advance in smart phone industry bringing powerful computing ability and other new interaction methods through integrated hardware. Many visually impaired people are using smart phone by voice command, others are all have high motivation to buy one or at least have a trial. The author collaborated with Cincinnati Association for The Blind and Visually Impaired (CABVI) and try to figure out the problem mentioned above. Solid secondary research has been made prior to this study for understanding human demands, current solutions and its’ restrictions. Several interviews, tests and co-creations have done to verify the effectiveness of using smartphone based interactions and navigation system and preferences of interactions from visually impaired people and specialists: including test of human senses, preferences for interactions, preferences for wearable / nonwearable devices and tests between audio based notification system and vibration based notification system. There are two main factors in internal navigation for visually impaired people: 1). notifying orientation and distance; 2). identifying objects. A series of studies achieved in this thesis also provide a strong support for voice command and linear interval vibration which can notify navigation information (including orientations and distance). The navigation system include a passive RFID system and a smart phone to identify different object easily and quickly. A series of passive RFID tags can be attached to any surfaces of objects or spaces that visually impaired people want to reach. After defining the specific items through voice command software, users will constantly notified by vibration. The frequency of vibration can vary based on the distance between the target object and the user. The more closer distance, the the higher frequency of vibration will be reached. Data show that visually impaired people have abilities to solve the internal navigation by following linear interval vibration notifications. Meanwhile, they are able to communicate with their smart phones through voice command functions. A passive RFID system only required to be settled down once—there is no need for maintenance and very user friendly for visually impaired to use besides set up. It is very complex to set up by visually impaired people, while it can be figured out by employees in associations for the bind and visually impaired, nurses, family members or any other sighted. Overall, the experience of internal navigation has been improved. A guideline was made for helping other designers or researchers aim to developing internal navigation related products, systems or interactions, including general guidelines and specific guidelines for interactions. A scenario was made in charter 5.8.5. to illustrate the working process of the final design proposal.
Craig Vogel, M.I.D. (Committee Chair)
Gerald Michaud, M.A. (Committee Member)
94 p.
Design
smartphone based interaction; visually impaired people; passive RFID system

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Teng, X. (2016). Internal Navigation through Interval Vibration Impacts for Visually Impaired Persons: Enhancement of Independent Living [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1471347436

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Teng, Xuan. Internal Navigation through Interval Vibration Impacts for Visually Impaired Persons: Enhancement of Independent Living. 2016. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1471347436.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Teng, Xuan. "Internal Navigation through Interval Vibration Impacts for Visually Impaired Persons: Enhancement of Independent Living." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1471347436

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.