Research Article
What’s around Me? Spatialized Audio Augmented Reality for Blind Users with a Smartphone
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-642-30973-1_5, author={Jeffrey Blum and Mathieu Bouchard and Jeremy Cooperstock}, title={What’s around Me? Spatialized Audio Augmented Reality for Blind Users with a Smartphone}, proceedings={Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking, and Services. 8th International ICST Conference, MobiQuitous 2011, Copenhagen, Denmark, December 6-9, 2011, Revised Selected Papers}, proceedings_a={MOBIQUITOUS}, year={2012}, month={10}, keywords={spatialized audio blind navigation GPS smartphone audio augmented reality}, doi={10.1007/978-3-642-30973-1_5} }- Jeffrey Blum
Mathieu Bouchard
Jeremy Cooperstock
Year: 2012
What’s around Me? Spatialized Audio Augmented Reality for Blind Users with a Smartphone
MOBIQUITOUS
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-30973-1_5
Abstract
Numerous projects have investigated assistive navigation technologies for the blind community, tackling challenges ranging from interface design to sensory substitution. However, none of these have successfully integrated what we consider to be the three factors necessary for a widely deployable system that delivers a rich experience of one’s environment: implementation on a commodity device, use of a pre-existing worldwide point of interest (POI) database, and a means of rendering the environment that is superior to a naive playback of spoken text. Our “In Situ Audio Services” (ISAS) application responds to these needs, allowing users to explore an urban area without necessarily having a particular destination in mind. We describe the technical aspects of its implementation, user requirements, interface design, safety concerns, POI data source issues, and further requirements to make the system practical on a wider basis. Initial qualitative feedback from blind users is also discussed.