Hamilton 1

Aidan Hamilton
Betsy Natter
Design & Society
Enter the date here
Literature Review
Introduction:
For those with a visual impairment the ability to travel independently is the most difficult
aspects of their handicap. This is noted by Marston and Golledge in their 2003 paper, "Golledge
(1993) noted that the inability to travel independently and to interact with the wider world is one
of the most significant handicaps that persons with visual impairments (that is, are blind or have
low vision) experience." (Marston, J. R., Golledge, R. G, 2003, pg. ) This inability to travel
independently is detrimental to the individual, it harms employment opportunities. Therefore, for
working age adults reporting significant vision loss, only 37.7were employed in 2012." ( Lee,
Schrader, 2014) Being unable to travel independently also reduces social interactions, and leaves
those who are visually impaired feeling helpless. While there has been much effort made is
designing technologies to combat this problem, the majority of designs are simply prototypes, or
have numerous faults to them. So there is a great need for more effective solutions to combat the
inability to travel independently for those with a visual impairment, a need I seek to fulfill.

Demographics
In 2012 there were 6,670,300 people who reported themselves as having a visual
impairment in America. (Lee, Schrader, 2014) A visual impairment being not just blindness, but
those who feel that they have poor enough vision for whatever reason that with correction that
most still resort to alternative methods to preform tasks that most could do by sight alone

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(Blindness Statistics, 2014). Of this number 3.4 million were woman and 2.8 million were men,
and 3.4 million were between the ages of 18 and 64 while 2.7 were 65 and older. (Lee, Schrader,
2014) Visual impairment affects a broad range of ages and both genders almost equally. So any
design to combat visual impairment must be designed so that those who are young and those who
are old can use it.

Background Information
There are five main types of information that are restricted to those with a visual
impairment that cause independent travel to be difficult especially in an unfamiliar area. These
are: "Specific information and positive identification at locations", "Spatial information accessed
from a distance.", "Directional cues to distant locations.", "Self-orientation and location.", and
"Integrated model of the space." (Marston, Golledge Klatzky, 2007, pg. 180).
The following descriptions are based on the descriptions of Marston from his unpublished
doctoral dissertation. Specific information and positive identification at locations is the the
ability to identify an objects identity and function once found. Those that are visually impaired
cannot do this, for example, even if a door is found someone with a visual impairment cannot tell
what the door leads to without prior knowledge, they cannot tell whether it is the door they were
looking for or not. In an unfamiliar environment they would have no way of knowing what any
door the reached lead to, this lack of information makes exploring a new environment almost
impossible without assistance. Spatial information accessed from a distance is the ability to
explore an environment rapidly and from a large distance to the place that is being explored.
Someone without a visual impairment can rapidly scan their surrounding with their eyes,
therefore knowing what the environment around them is like quickly and in a large radius to the
individual. But someone with a visual impairment generally has to rely on shorter range senses to
ascertain their surroundings, such as smell and using a cane. Because they have to use short
ranges senses the environment that is known to them is in small radius around them. So someone

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with a visual impairment could be unaware of important features that are only a few feet away
from them. Directional cues to distant locations: "It can be difficult to walk directly to locations
without having to follow a learned path. With the exception of some other sensory input (sounds;
air currents; heat; or, per- haps, light perception), there are no available directional cues to guide
walking to a distant target (such as crossing a large lobby to reach an elevator)." (Marston,
Golledge, 2003, pg. 476). Self-Orientation and location is the ability to easily tell where you are
in reference to other objects, and ascertain your location from this information. Those with a
visual impairment cannot not do this easily, and can only tell their location when they are in a
very familiar area of undergoing a lot of training to do so. Because of this exploring a new area is
almost impossible, as its nearly impossible to keep track of where one is, so getting lost would be
inevitable. Integrated model of the space is the ability to create a cognitive map of your
surroundings. As someone with a visual impairment has extremely low amount of information
about their surroundings it is extremely difficult to build a cognitive map.

Existing Solutions
There are tools that exist to help those who are visually impaired combat these
informational deficits and increase their ability to travel independently. The most common tools
are the white cane and a guide dog, which are use primarily for obstacle avoidance and do
provide a somewhat greater range for their "visible" surroundings. There are other electronic
devices that complement these tools that seek to improve obstacle avoidance and it is an issue
that has received significant funding. A recent example is the "eyecane", which is a cane
equipped with multiple sensors that give more information about the immediate environment to
the user. "The 'EyeCane' enhances the traditional White Cane by using tactile and auditory output
to increase detectable distance and angles. It circumvents the technical pitfalls of other devices,
such as weight, short battery life, complex interface schemes, and slow learning curve. It
implements multiple beams to enables detection of obstacles at different heights, and narrow

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beams to provide active sensing that can potentially increase the user's spatial perception of the
environment." (Maidenbaum, S., Hanassy, S., Abboud, S., Buchs, G., Chebat, D., Levy-Tzedek, S.,
Amedi, A., 2014 pg 813) This is only one of many devices that seek to improve obstacle avoidance

for people with a visual impairment.

However, these tools do little to provide information about the functionality and/or
purpose of objects in the environment, as well as the location of objects not around the
immediate location of the visually impaired person. There are a variety of tools that exist provide
this information to a visually impaired person. The easiest method to help those with visual
impairments navigate outdoors is by utilizing something like google maps, along with GPS and a
program that converts text into speech. The visually impaired individual can input where they
would like to go and the device gives the impaired individual directions to get there, such as turn
right, walk forward 60 steps and so on. This type of design helps get a visually impaired person
from place to place, but there are a couple of issues with it. The design does nothing to help the
visually impaired identify landmarks and their surroundings as the travel to their destination, so
cognitive mapping is still difficult, and the goal of exploring a new area is not fulfilled. The
second major issue is that this type of design does not easily transfer over into an indoor
environment. This is primarily because there are not readily available "maps" of indoor
environments for a program to generate routes to destinations. These issues have been long since
recognized and current designs seek to overcome these flaws in current designs in some way or
other.
As I decided to focus on way-finding in an indoor environment, the existing solutions I
will be listing are going to be dealing with the issue of traveling in an indoor environment. One
design called BlindAid attempted to help the visually impaired travel in new environments
letting them explore the (indoor) environment virtually. "BlindAid allows the users to interact
with different virtual structures and objects through auditory and haptic feedback." (Lahav,
Schloerb, Srinivasan, 2014 , pg 1) This design is intended to be used together with a traditional

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orientation and mobility (O&M) program. The paper found that allowing those with visual
impairments to explore an environment virtually before attempting to navigate it drastically
increased the time it took to navigate the environment, reduced the number of times they had to
ask for help, and greatly increased their confidence and likelihood to independently navigating in
the future. However, this design does not give real-time directions/information while in the
physical environment, and it requires a person to create a digital model of the indoor
environment to be of use. So the number of buildings that this would be practically useful in is
low.
Another remarkable solution to this problem was created by Ross, David A., and Gary W.
Kelly. Christened "cyber crumbs", the device they built is a small low cost device that can be
inputed with 128 characters of programmable text. This information is then transmitted using
infra-red digital association coding in 12 foot radius around the "cyber crumb". A user with the
receiver they designed would then pick up the signal, and then translate the text into synthesized
speech for the visually impaired to hear. (Ross, David A., and Gary W. Kell., 2009) These "cyber
crumbs" were intended to be placed on any important landmark, with information about what it
is, its function and its location.(Ross, David A., and Gary W. Kell., 2009) This information
would be invaluable to the visually impaired as large majority of the visually would be willing to
travel independently and more often if a information providing device such as this was present in
the environment (Marston, Golledge, 2003). However the device was only a prototype, and had
numerous flaws, most notably that the amount and type of information to be received could not
be specified by the user, thus clouding the user with large amount of potentially extraneous
information. (Ross, David A., and Gary W. Kell., 2009)

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Design Approach
For my design I intend to emulate the prototype of the the "cyber crumb" and create a
device that can be attached to a landmark and provide information about it to a visually impaired
person. I will improve upon their notion by requiring information to be sorted into categories
upon entry onto the device that provides the information, then the user could toggle what
information they wish to hear. I also am considering attempting to transmit the information over
the wifi spectrum or perhaps bluetooth, so that the information could be picked up by a phone,
removing the need for a separate device as a receiver. However this is a complex task to
complete without interfering with local wireless data and will require a large amount of research
to finish. I will also improve upon the "cyber crumb" design in my design in other smaller ways,
incorporating the best features when possible of the numerous designs and research I've
encountered.

Human Factors and Other User Needs

For the intended path of my design anthropometry and biomechanics will not be major
concerns, as the design as it will concern the user (the one receiving the information) would
simply be an app for their phone. Designing the stick on "cyber crumb" improvement will
require some thought to anthropometry and biomechanics, ensuring that the casing for the
hardware providing the signal is comfortable to grab and attach to a surface. Perception is an
important factor of my design, I will need to make sure that the device providing the signal has
an intuitive interface, and that it is easy to input the text to be transmitted. Perception will also be
important to consider in devising ways to make the device that provides the information fade into
the background or be otherwise aesthetically pleasing in a wide range of scenarios. This would
remove some of the reasons owners of buildings would have for not placing them around their
building. Cognition will also be a major concern, primarily for the end user, in making the

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different categories of information useful, and the toggle feature for the different information
easy to understand. I will also have to attach with the device that produces the signal a pamphlet
of some kind, instructing the person that inputs the text how do so most effectively for the end
user, a person with a visual impairment. This will also concern the cognition aspect of human
factors.
As I progress in the design of my device other specific concerns that require addressing
will arise. But in keeping in mind the viewpoint of the user, I will hope to find them and correct
them successfully.

Conclusion
Those with a visual impairment find that the most difficult part of their disability is
independent travel. This is because those with a visual impairment have 5 main informational
deficits when compared to someone with perfect sight. These are: "Specific information and
positive identification at locations", "Spatial information accessed from a distance.", "Directional
cues to distant locations.", "Self-orientation and location.", and "Integrated model of the space."
(Marston, Golledge Klatzky, 2007, pg. 180). There are existing technologies that deal with the
problem of obstacle avoidance for those with a visual impairment, as well as technologies that
address these informational deficits in an outdoor environment, making use of GPS technology.
However there are few commercially available technologies to help those with a visual
impairment combat these informational deficits in an indoor environment. That is the area of
way-finding for those with a visual impairment that I seek to address.

References:

"Blindness Statistics." Blindness Statistics. National Federation of the Blind, 6 Aug. 2014. Web.
7 Feb. 2015. <https://nfb.org/blindness-statistics>.

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Erickson, W., Lee, C., von Schrader, S. (2014). Disability Statistics from the 2012 American
Community Survey (ACS). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Employment and Disability
Institute (EDI)
Golledge, R. G. (1993). Geography and the disabled-A survey with special reference to vision
impaired and blind populations. Trans actions of the Institute of British Geographers, 18, 63-85.
Lahav Orly, David W. Schloerb, and Mandayam A. Srinivasan. "Rehabilitation Program
Integrating Virtual Environment to Improve Orientation and Mobility Skills for People
Who Are Blind." Computers & Education (2014): 1-14. Print.
Loomis, J. M., Golledge, R. G., Klatzky, R. L., & Marston, J. R. (2007). Assisting wayfinding in visually
impaired travelers. In G. L. Allen (Ed.), Applied spatial cognition: From research to cognitive
technology (pp. 179202). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Maidenbaum, S., Hanassy, S., Abboud, S., Buchs, G., Chebat, D., Levy-Tzedek, S., & Amedi, A. (2014).
The 'EyeCane', a new electronic travel aid for the blind: Technology, behavior & swift learning.
Restorative Neurology & Neuroscience, 32(6), 813-824. doi:10.3233/RNN-130351
Marston, J. R., & Golledge, R. G. (2003). The hidden demand for participation in activities and travel by
persons who are visually impaired. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 97, 475488.

Marston, J. R. (2002). Towards an accessible city: Empirical measurement and modeling of access to urban
opportunities for those with vision impairments, using remote infrared audible signage. Unpublished

doctoral dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara. [Online] Available:

<http://www.geog.ucsb. edu/-marstonj/DIS/OVERVIEW.html>.
Ross, David A., and Gary W. Kelly. "Filling The Gaps For Indoor Wayfinding." Journal Of
Visual Impairment & Blindness 103.4 (2009): 229-234. Academic Search Premier. Web.
24 Jan. 2015.