Travel Service Design for the Visually Impaired: User Experience from Combining Real Human Assistants and AI Devices in an Appropriate Proportion

Author(s):  
Linghong Li
Author(s):  
Kavita Pandey ◽  
Dhiraj Pandey ◽  
Vatsalya Yadav ◽  
Shriya Vikhram

Background: According to the WHO report, around 4.07% of the world's population is visually impaired. About 90% of the visually impaired users live in the lower economic strata. In the fast moving technology, most of the invention misses the need of these people. Mainly the technologies were designed for mainstream people; visually impaired people always find an inability to access it. This inability arises primarily for reasons such as cost, for example, Perkins Brailler costs 80-248 dollars for the simple purpose of Braille input. Another major reason is the hassle of carrying the big equipment. Objective: Keeping all this in mind and making technology as their best friends, MAGIC-1 has been designed. The goal is to provide a solution in terms of an application, which helps the visually impaired user in their daily life activities. Method: The proposed solution assists visually impaired users through smart phone technology. If visually impaired users ever wished to have a touched guide into a smart phone, MAGIC-1 has the solution that consolidates all the important features in their daily activities. Results: The performance of the solution as a whole and its individual features in terms of usability, utility and other metrics, etc. has been tested with sample visually impaired users. Moreover, their performances in term of Errors per Word and Words per Minute have been observed. Conclusion: MAGIC-I, the proposed solution works as an assistant of visually impaired users to overcome their daily struggles and stay more connected to the world. A visually impaired user can communicate via their mobile devices with features like eyes free texting using braille, voice calling etc. They can easily take help in an emergency situation with the options of SOS emergency calling and video assistance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 168781402110284
Author(s):  
Weiwei Wang ◽  
Ting Wei ◽  
Suihuai Yu ◽  
Jian Chen ◽  
Binhong Guo ◽  
...  

To solve the problem of the fuzzy and dynamics of requirement caused by users’ cognitive bias, a dynamic requirement and priority capture method based on user scenarios is proposed, aiming at effectively improving user experience. The method consists of the following steps: Firstly, users with similar characteristics are filtered to form a user cluster, then obtain the user’s product experience in different usage scenarios and acquire preliminary requirements by using service design methods. Secondly, the requirement path model tree will be designed and the requirement path matrix will be constructed through the evaluation of the user cluster. Then the pathfinder algorithm will be used to calculate the required correlation of user clusters and prioritize the requirements. Finally, the direction of the product design will be provided. Taking the design of the intelligent office chair as an example, the effectiveness of the method is verified by evaluating the satisfaction of user experience.


2012 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Djilali Idoughi ◽  
Ahmed Seffah ◽  
Christophe Kolski

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karim Touloum ◽  
Djilali Idoughi ◽  
Ahmed Seffah

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 337-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giles Hamilton-Fletcher ◽  
Thomas D. Wright ◽  
Jamie Ward

Visual sensory substitution devices (SSDs) can represent visual characteristics through distinct patterns of sound, allowing a visually impaired user access to visual information. Previous SSDs have avoided colour and when they do encode colour, have assigned sounds to colour in a largely unprincipled way. This study introduces a new tablet-based SSD termed the ‘Creole’ (so called because it combines tactile scanning with image sonification) and a new algorithm for converting colour to sound that is based on established cross-modal correspondences (intuitive mappings between different sensory dimensions). To test the utility of correspondences, we examined the colour–sound associative memory and object recognition abilities of sighted users who had their device either coded in line with or opposite to sound–colour correspondences. Improved colour memory and reduced colour-errors were made by users who had the correspondence-based mappings. Interestingly, the colour–sound mappings that provided the highest improvements during the associative memory task also saw the greatest gains for recognising realistic objects that also featured these colours, indicating a transfer of abilities from memory to recognition. These users were also marginally better at matching sounds to images varying in luminance, even though luminance was coded identically across the different versions of the device. These findings are discussed with relevance for both colour and correspondences for sensory substitution use.


1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (9) ◽  
pp. 449-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
B.B. Blasch ◽  
R.G. Long ◽  
N. Griffin-Shirley

Electronic travel aids (ETAs) emit laser beams or high-frequency auditory waves that are reflected from nearby objects. These reflections are received by the ETA and converted to signals that the visually impaired user can perceive and interpret. After reviewing the literature on ETAs, the authors present the results of their survey on the use of and the problems associated with four types of ETAs. They report that the participants in the survey associated aid use with more rapid travel and feelings of safety and confidence in traveling, and that the most frequently used ETAs were the Laser Cane and the Mowat Sensor. These aids were found to be most useful in detecting pedestrians, and obstacles at head and body level.


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