Pointing for non-visual orientation and navigation

Abstract:
People who have visual impairments may have difficulties navigating freely and without personal assistance, and some are even afraid to go out alone. Current navigation devices with non-visual feedback are quite expensive, few, and are in general focused on routing and target finding. We have developed a test prototype application running on the Android platform in which a user may scan for map information using the mobile phone as a pointing device to orient herself and to choose targets for navigation and be guided to them. It has previously been shown in proof of concept studies that scanning and pointing to get information about different locations, or to use it to be guided to a point, can be useful. In the present study we describe the design of PointNav, a prototype navigational application, and report initial results from a recent test with visually impaired and sighted users.