research-article

Impact of Expertise on Interaction Preferences for Navigation Assistance of Visually Impaired Individuals

Authors:

Dragan Ahmetovic,

João Guerreiro,

Kris M. Kitani,

Chieko AsakawaAuthors Info & Claims

W4A '19: Proceedings of the 16th International Web for All Conference

Article No.: 31, Pages 1 - 9

https://doi.org/10.1145/3315002.3317561

Published: 13 May 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Navigation assistive technologies have been designed to support individuals with visual impairments during independent mobility by providing sensory augmentation and contextual awareness of their surroundings. Such information is habitually provided through predefned audio-haptic interaction paradigms. However, individual capabilities, preferences and behavior of people with visual impairments are heterogeneous, and may change due to experience, context and necessity. Therefore, the circumstances and modalities for providing navigation assistance need to be personalized to different users, and through time for each user.

We conduct a study with 13 blind participants to explore how the desirability of messages provided during assisted navigation varies based on users' navigation preferences and expertise. The participants are guided through two different routes, one without prior knowledge and one previously studied and traversed. The guidance is provided through turn-by-turn instructions, enriched with contextual information about the environment. During navigation and follow-up interviews, we uncover that participants have diversifed needs for navigation instructions based on their abilities and preferences. Our study motivates the design of future navigation systems capable of verbosity level personalization in order to keep the users engaged in the current situational context while minimizing distractions.

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Cited By

Zhang HFalletta NXie JYu RLee SBillah SCarroll J(2025)Enhancing the Travel Experience for People with Visual Impairments through Multimodal Interaction: NaviGPT, A Real-Time AI-Driven Mobile Navigation SystemCompanion Proceedings of the 2025 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work10.1145/3688828.3699636(29-35)Online publication date: 12-Jan-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3688828.3699636
Cassidy CBranham S(2024)Dude, Where's My Luggage? An Autoethnographic Account of Airport Navigation by a Traveler with Residual VisionProceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3663548.3675624(1-13)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3663548.3675624
Han SYoon PRen XKim K(2024)The Effects of Walk-in-Place and Overground Walking on the Acquisition of Spatial Information by People With Visual Impairment in Virtual Reality WayfindingInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2024.2325177(1-19)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2024.2325177
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Impact of Expertise on Interaction Preferences for Navigation Assistance of Visually Impaired Individuals

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W4A '19: Proceedings of the 16th International Web for All Conference

May 2019

224 pages

ISBN:9781450367165

DOI:10.1145/3315002

Copyright © 2019 ACM.

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Published: 13 May 2019

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W4A '19: Web For All 2019 Personalization - Personalizing the Web

May 13 - 15, 2019

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W4A '19 Paper Acceptance Rate 18 of 49 submissions, 37%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 171 of 371 submissions, 46%

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Cited By

Zhang HFalletta NXie JYu RLee SBillah SCarroll J(2025)Enhancing the Travel Experience for People with Visual Impairments through Multimodal Interaction: NaviGPT, A Real-Time AI-Driven Mobile Navigation SystemCompanion Proceedings of the 2025 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work10.1145/3688828.3699636(29-35)Online publication date: 12-Jan-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3688828.3699636
Cassidy CBranham S(2024)Dude, Where's My Luggage? An Autoethnographic Account of Airport Navigation by a Traveler with Residual VisionProceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3663548.3675624(1-13)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3663548.3675624
Han SYoon PRen XKim K(2024)The Effects of Walk-in-Place and Overground Walking on the Acquisition of Spatial Information by People With Visual Impairment in Virtual Reality WayfindingInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2024.2325177(1-19)Online publication date: 13-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2024.2325177
Chelladurai PMilallos RMathew RNair APeiris ROh T(2023)An Exploratory Study on the Usability and Features of Indoor Navigation Apps for the Blind and Visually ImpairedProceedings of the 2nd International Conference of the ACM Greek SIGCHI Chapter10.1145/3609987.3609998(1-8)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2023
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Fan DFay Siu ARao HKim GVazquez XGreco LO'Modhrain SFollmer S(2023)The Accessibility of Data Visualizations on the Web for Screen Reader Users: Practices and Experiences During COVID-19ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing10.1145/355789916:1(1-29)Online publication date: 29-Mar-2023
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Binkhonain MNajm MAlharbi O(2023)Understanding Uses’ Needs in the Development of Indoor Navigation for Visually Impaired Users in Saudi ArabiaExtended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544549.3585909(1-7)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
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Hersh MRamirez A(2022)Route Descriptions, Spatial Knowledge and Spatial Representations of Blind and Partially Sighted People: Improved Design of Electronic Travel AidsACM Transactions on Accessible Computing10.1145/354907715:4(1-46)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
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