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Navigaid is an electronic companion for navigation and is the
result of a design process with visually impaired that was carried
out as a course project at KTH in Stockholm. For more details
about the project see http://www.heijmer.com/acpu/en/project.html,
about the course see http://www.nada.kth.se/~fredrikw/acpu-eng.html
If you have a comment our a query about our website, please contact
us at acpu@kvarnparken.se
Scenario
A typical situation, in which Navigaid can be of assistance,
is when a user wants to walk somewhere and needs detailed directions
because of difficulties to see. The instructions might be as the
following, maintained by the user.
Walking from home to the grocery store:
· Walk out through the door to a 2 meter broad pavement.
· Turn right and follow the house wall.
· After 5 meters there is a parking meter, pass that.
· The house wall has windows with metal grids for about
30 meters. Follow the wall until the end of those and a protruding
entrance.
· The wall continues after the entrance, pass 3 windows
with metal sills at hip height and a grid gate.
· After the grid gate there is a dark house wall made of
brick. Follow the wall a short distance to a second grid gate
and then 15 meters more to a corner with a metal box.
· Leave the house wall at the box and continue straight
on, a rubble surface with trees is on the left, cross a pavement
up to a metal railing.
· Follow the railing 8 meters to the left until you reach
a wastepaper basket and a pole with a clicking sound. Walk to
the right of the pole and cross the road to a refuge with a clicking
pole and onwards to a third pole with a clicking sound at a house
wall.
· Follow the wall to the left, until there is a shop window.
Follow that to the end, after another meter the entrance to the
grocery is to the right:
The electronic companion can tell you this, captured in a small
and mobile device that either resembles or is contained in a cellular
phone, with a combination of various technologies: GPS, synthetic
speech, electronic compass etc. Through this it would be possible
for the users to know where they are, in what direction they are
headed and how to proceed to get to the goal. In order to make
the directions accurate and up to date the users are integrated
in the maintenance of them. Users can record a new route and upload
it to a public database on the Internet.
The unit and the directions will assist in the planning of routes
hence offering more autonomy and flexibility to the user and thereby
increasing the user¹s confidence in his/her ability to explore
unknown environments.
Project course context
Navigaid has been developed as a conceptual prototype in a course
at the Department of Numerical Analysis and Computer Science at
the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden. The
assignment given was to identify and develop, in a cooperative
design process, a technology that could increase or facilitate
a specific user group¹s access to public spaces. The project
group is interdisciplinary and the seven members come from computer
science, electrical engineering and graphic design.
The project group decided to work with visually impaired people.
The presumption was that many visually impaired people want to
take an active part in our society but find themselves, to some
extent, excluded from many public places. Today, partially sighted
or blind people require assistance to gain full access to public
places such as public transportation and shops.
Design process
Co-operative design - a reference group
Collaboration with users is essential in a co-operative design
process. A representative reference group consisting of members
of the user group, i.e. visually impaired persons was created
with the help of The Swedish Association of the Visually Impaired.
Initial interviews with members of the reference group provided
us with indispensable information that helped the identification
and assessment of significant problems the users may have in their
everyday life. Navigation in public places proved to be one of
the major difficulties. Therefore the objective of the Navigaid
project became to develop and design a prototype or a technology
that would facilitate navigation in public environments for visually
impaired persons and thus increase their access to public spaces.
Workshop 1
Along with literature studies, the information from the interviews
served as a basis for the preparations for the first workshop.
The reference group was given a variety of scenarios and situations
in which orientation is vital. These scenarios led to a vivid
discussion on navigation in public places, available aids, community
travel services and society’s attitudes towards visually
impaired persons. The reference group communicated that it is
difficult to go from one place to another without assistance and
that even the smallest changes, in a familiar route, can cause
major problems. The problems the user group faces are of various
natures: it is difficult to know one’s position, the direction
in which one is moving and how far one is to go. The sudden appearance
of obstacles such as road work and outdoor cafés is an
additional difficulty. After the workshop and brainstorming sessions
within the project group it was decided that the project should
focus on outdoor navigation.
Deepening our understanding
In order to come up with a solution to these problems the design
process progressed with another workshop, several brainstorming
sessions and other activities such as contextual inquiries and
field studies. During these activities various ideas for solutions
where proposed. An idea that appealed to both reference group
and project group alike was to combine directions with a positioning
device. The reference group did not want an additional “thing”
to carry around. Their explicit wish was that this new functionality
would be integrated in cellular phone which is extensively used
by visually impaired people.
Vision problems vary from person to person and it became apparent
that the directions needed to be structured in levels of detail.
This will provide directions with more detailed information for
those who need it, without it being an obstacle for those who
didn’t need the same level of detail.
The packaging
After having identified the problems and formulated plausible
solutions to them the co-operative design process came to focus
on the outer design of the device. If the device is to be useful
for its intended users it must fulfil certain exterior requirements.
The reference group suggested that the device should be the shape
of a small cellular phone with a large display. Colours and structure
can be used to attain an optimal contrast that will further facilitate
the use of the device. It was decided that the device should be
black and yellow since this is a combination that offers the best
contrast and has been successfully used for other products intended
for visually impaired people. The reference group also suggested
that the device have optional synthetic speech and voice control
functions so that the directions could be provided in spoken form.
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