Abstract:
This paper describes the interface and testing of an indoor navigation app - ASSIST - that guides blind & visually impaired (BVI) individuals through an indoor environment with high accuracy while augmenting their understanding of the surrounding environment. ASSIST features personalized inter- faces by considering the unique experiences that BVI individuals have in indoor wayfinding and of- fers multiple levels of multimodal feedback. After an overview of the technical approach and imple- mentation of the first prototype of the ASSIST system, the results of two pilot studies performed with BVI individuals are presented. Our studies show that ASSIST is useful in providing users with navigational guidance, improving their efficiency and (more significantly) their safety and accuracy in wayfinding indoors.
