A Survey on Outdoor Navigation Applications for People With Visual Impairments

Abstract

Outdoor navigation remains a challenging activity for People with Visual Impairments (PVI). Having examined the current literature, we conclude that there are very few publications providing a nuanced understanding of how PVI undertake a journey in an outdoor environment and what are their main challenges and obstacles. This is a critical step towards developing robust solutions that meet the requirements of this user group. We undertook a questionnaire-based study with the National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) and 49 PVI. According to the feedback from our questionnaire, current journey navigation apps do not provide PVI with sufficient information about traffic lights, crossroads, and physical obstacles to support a satisfactory interaction. Our study reveals key aspects of how PVI interact with outdoor navigation applications. Critical gaps exist, for example, over 63% of respondents indicated they had suffered an injury on at least one previous occasion when navigating outdoors. Based on the questionnaire feedback, we present a solution covering the main aspects of outdoor navigation for PVI. Our work aims to contribute to the improvement of outdoor navigation applications for PVI in the future.

Keywords

• Accessibility
• outdoor navigation
• users with blindness or visual impairment
• sensory substitution devices
• assistive technology