Visual impairment is a common issue that affects millions of people worldwide and can have a significant impact on their daily lives. Navigation in unknown environments can be particularly challenging for individuals with visual impairments, leading to feelings of disorientation and vulnerability. To address this issue, the design of a tactile feedback wristband aimed at helping people with visual impairments navigate in unknown environments is presented in this paper. This device incorporates a 3x3 vibrotactile array to display vibration patterns and provides real-time navigation information to the user. The device was designed with a focus on enhancing the user’s confidence and intuition, making it user-friendly and accessible for people with visual impairments. To evaluate the device, two experiments were run with participants. The first experiment aimed to characterize the vibration patterns, while the second tested the device in real-life conditions. The results of these experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the device in providing reliable and accurate navigation information with an improvement of 20% between an intuitively designed vibration patterns set and a set that was designed using the results of the user experiment as design considerations.
La disabilit`a visiva `e un problema comune che colpisce milioni di persone in tutto il mondo e pu`o avere un impatto significativo sulla loro vita quotidiana. La navigazione in ambienti sconosciuti pu`o essere particolarmente impegnativa per le persone con disabilit`a visiva, con conseguente sensazione di disorientamento e vulnerabilit`a. Per affrontare questo problema, in questo articolo viene presentata la progettazione di un braccialetto con feedback tattile per aiutare le persone con disabilit`a visive a navigare in ambienti sconosciuti. Questo dispositivo incorpora un array vibrotattile 3x3 per visualizzare modelli di vibrazione e fornire informazioni di navigazione in tempo reale all’utente. Il dispositivo `e stato progettato con l’obiettivo di migliorare la fiducia e l’intuizione dell’utente, rendendolo facile da usare e accessibile per le persone con disabilit`a visive. Per valutare il dispositivo, sono stati condotti due esperimenti con i partecipanti. Il primo esperimento mirava a caratterizzare i modelli di vibrazione, mentre il secondo ha testato il dispositivo in condizioni reali. I risultati di questi esperimenti dimostrano l’efficacia del dispositivo nel fornire informazioni di navigazione affidabili e precise, con un miglioramento del 20% tra un set di modelli di vibrazione progettato intuitivamente e un set progettato utilizzando i risultati degli esperimenti come considerazioni di progettazione.
Design of a wearable tactile feedback device to support navigation of visually impaired individuals
Soulie, Pierre-Louis
2021/2022
Abstract
Visual impairment is a common issue that affects millions of people worldwide and can have a significant impact on their daily lives. Navigation in unknown environments can be particularly challenging for individuals with visual impairments, leading to feelings of disorientation and vulnerability. To address this issue, the design of a tactile feedback wristband aimed at helping people with visual impairments navigate in unknown environments is presented in this paper. This device incorporates a 3x3 vibrotactile array to display vibration patterns and provides real-time navigation information to the user. The device was designed with a focus on enhancing the user’s confidence and intuition, making it user-friendly and accessible for people with visual impairments. To evaluate the device, two experiments were run with participants. The first experiment aimed to characterize the vibration patterns, while the second tested the device in real-life conditions. The results of these experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the device in providing reliable and accurate navigation information with an improvement of 20% between an intuitively designed vibration patterns set and a set that was designed using the results of the user experiment as design considerations.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/204874