“I Want to Figure Things Out”

Supporting exploration in navigation for people with visual impairments

Photo by Mart Production on Pexels.

Navigation assistance systems (NASs) are designed to assist visually impaired people (VIPs) in navigating unfamiliar environments. However, most current NASs provide turn-by-turn directions (e.g., “walk 10 ft. and turn left”) without allowing VIPs to explore or make spontaneous navigation decisions along the way. Consequently, VIPs often miss out on the freedom to go out and navigate on their own terms.

In our research paper “I Want to Figure Things Out”: Supporting Exploration in Navigation for People with Visual Impairments, we introduced the concept of “Exploration Assistance,” an evolution of NASs that empowers VIPs to explore unfamiliar environments. This blog post summarizes our research, which will be presented at the CSCW 2023 conference.

Through a series of interviews with VIPs and others who affect their navigation behaviors, our study addresses two key research questions:

• RQ1. What information do VIPs need to explore unfamiliar environments, and what factors influence these needs between individuals?
• RQ2. What challenges do VIPs face while exploring unfamiliar environments, both independently and collaboratively?

Unlike traditional NASs that guide VIPs through a fixed route via turn-by-turn instructions (left), exploration assistance (right) empowers VIPs to explore unfamiliar environments. Future NASs could enable exploration by providing VIPs area shape and layout info and facilitating collaboration with others.

What information do VIPs need for exploring unfamiliar environments?

Our interviews with VIPs revealed that they need two types of spatial information for exploration:

• Shape information: a skeletal wire-frame of the environment that marks its bounds and provides a high-level overview.
• Layout information: arrangement of different objects within the space; both with respect to the user (egocentric) and with respect to the environment (allocentric).

We also identified three factors that influence individuals’ preferences for spatial information: (1) onset of vision impairment (2) their inherent sociability, and (3) their orientation and mobility (O&M) proficiency. These factors were found to influence individual preferences for the format, source, and amount of spatial information needed during exploration. For instance, late-blind VIPs, who experienced vision impairment later in life, prefer detailed descriptions. In contrast, early-blind VIPs favor spatial information as confirmations, complementing their non-visual sensory input from hearing, touch, and smell.

What challenges do VIPs face when exploring unfamiliar environments?

Our analysis of interviews with both VIPs and others who affect their navigation behaviors (e.g., mobility instructors, store employees, leaders of blind serving organizations) revealed challenges faced by VIPs during exploration, categorized into two main modes:

• Independent Exploration: VIPs often hesitate to explore on their own due to a lack of confidence in interpreting spatial information gathered through non-visual senses like hearing, touch, and smell. Even when reliable spatial data is available, their self-reported orientation and mobility (O&M) proficiency may not suffice.
• Collaborative Exploration: Both VIPs and their collaborators highlighted the presence of social pressure as a significant barrier to successful collaboration. For instance, during an interview with a grocery store employee, concerns arose about infringing on the privacy and autonomy of visually impaired customers, despite good intentions to assist them.

Summary of key insights from the study findings and design implications for developing future NASs that support VIP’s exploration in navigation. Please see this link for an accessible version of the table.

How should navigation assistance systems (NASs) be designed to support VIPs’ exploration?

Our study findings lead to design implications for NASs that support VIPs’ exploration in navigation, as well as introduce new roles for NASs beyond navigating users to their destinations. Future NASs should:

• Enable active user engagement with the environment, allowing them to gather precise spatial information and act confidently.
• Incorporate features promoting O&M education during navigation to boost VIPs’ confidence in exploring environments.
• Bridge communication gaps between VIPs and those around them, facilitating collaborative exploration. For instance, NASs can assist in requesting assistance by allowing VIPs to specify their information needs and format preferences.

We hope these design implications will inspire future research to develop NASs that empower VIPs in their navigation and exploration.

Check out our paper presentation at the CSCW 2023 conference on October 16 (11:00am — 12:30 pm CT) in the Accessibility session!

Gaurav Jain, Yuanyang Teng, David Cho, Yunhao Xing, Maryam Aziz, and Brian A. Smith. 2023. “I Want to Figure Things Out”: Supporting Exploration in Navigation for People with Visual Impairments. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 7, CSCW1 (April 2023), 63:1–63:28. https://doi.org/10.1145/3579496