Abstract
Meetings play an important role in today’s work environment. Unfortunately, blind and visually impaired people often encounter difficulties in participating fully and equally. The main reasons are twofold: Firstly, visual aids such as whiteboards, flipcharts, or projectors are often used, which present information in a 2D format. Secondly, nonverbal communication plays an essential role, with frequent use of deictic gestures, like pointing gestures, incorporating spatial information into the conversation. These factors lead to a disadvantage for blind and visually impaired individuals in the workplace. As part of the research project MAPVI [5], an accessible brainstorming tool for meetings has been developed, capable of storing nonverbal and spatial information, which can be connected to various devices such as computers, smartphones, and smartwatches. This provides a solid foundation for successfully addressing these issues through innovative user interaction concepts, making spatial information accessible and understandable for blind and visually impaired individuals. Prototypes of these user interface concepts have been developed and tested with the target group in a staged and iterative manner, with implementations running in the browser, on a smartphone, and on a smartwatch. This paper will outline the development and testing procedures, as well as the corresponding test results.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bolt, R.A.: “Put-that-there”: Voice and gesture at the graphics interface. ACM SIGGRAPH Comput. Graph. 14(3), 262–270 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1145/965105.807503
Brooke, J.: SUS: a retrospective. J. Usability Stud. 8, 29–40 (2013)
Elrod, S., et al.: Liveboard: a large interactive display supporting group meetings, presentations, and remote collaboration. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 599–607. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA (1992). https://doi.org/10.1145/142750.143052
Geronazzo, M., et al.: Interactive spatial sonification for non-visual exploration of virtual maps. Int. J. Hum.-Comput. Stud. 85, 4–15 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2015.08.004
Gunther, S. et al.: MAPVI: meeting accessibility for persons with visual impairments. In: Proceedings of the 12th ACM International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments, pp. 343–352. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA (2019). https://doi.org/10.1145/3316782.3322747
Guo, A. et al.: VizLens: a robust and interactive screen reader for interfaces in the real world. In: Proceedings of the 29th Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, pp. 651–664. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA (2016). https://doi.org/10.1145/2984511.2984518
Hart, S.G.: Nasa-task load index (NASA-TLX); 20 years later. Proc. Hum. Factors Ergon. Soc. Annu. Meet. 50(9), 904–908 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1177/154193120605000909
Koutny, R., Miesenberger, K.: Accessible user interface concept for business meeting tool support including spatial and non-verbal information for blind and visually impaired people. In: Miesenberger, K. et al. (eds.) Computers Helping People with Special Needs, pp. 321–328. Springer, Cham (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08648-9_37
Kunz, A. et al.: Accessibility of brainstorming sessions for blind people. In: Miesenberger, K. et al. (eds.) Computers Helping People with Special Needs, pp. 237–244. Springer, Cham (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08596-8_38
Magerkurth, C., Prante, T.: Metaplan für die Westentasche: Mobile Computerunterstützung für Kreativitätssitzungen. In: Oberquelle, H. et al. (eds.) Mensch & Computer 2001: 1. Fachübergreifende Konferenz, pp. 163–171. Vieweg+Teubner Verlag, Wiesbaden (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-80108-1_18
Pölzer, S., Miesenberger, K.: A tactile presentation method of mind maps in co-located meetings. In: Presented at the TacTT@ITS (2014)
Wacker, P., et al.: ARPen: mid-air object manipulation techniques for a bimanual AR system with pen & smartphone. In: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1–12. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA (2019). https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300849
Willis, S., Helal, S.: RFID information grid for blind navigation and wayfinding. In: Ninth IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC 2005), pp. 34–37 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1109/ISWC.2005.46
Designing user friendly augmented work environments. Comput. Support. Coop. Work (2010)
Supporting blind navigation using depth sensing and sonification. In: Proceedings of the 2013 ACM conference on Pervasive and ubiquitous computing adjunct publication, https://doi.org/10.1145/2494091.2494173, Accessed 10 Feb 2024
The design space of augmented and virtual reality applications for assistive environments in manufacturing. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments, https://doi.org/10.1145/3056540.3076193, Accessed 10 Feb 2024
Acknowledgments
This project (MAPVI) including this publication was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): I 3741-N31.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Koutny, R. (2024). Exploring Space: User Interfaces for Blind and Visually Impaired People for Spatial and Non-verbal Information. In: Miesenberger, K., Peňáz, P., Kobayashi, M. (eds) Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14750. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-62846-7_32
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-62846-7_32
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-62845-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-62846-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)