Interactive Audio-haptic Map Explorer on a Tactile Display

Abstract

In this article, we propose and evaluate a novel audio-haptic map system to improve map accessibility for the visually impaired while reading city maps and making pre-journey routes. The system employs a touch-sensitive pin-matrix display and represents various map elements through a pre-defined set of tactile map symbols consisting of raised and lowered pins. The interactive user interface allows users to not only acquire auditory and Braille geographic information by touching the involved map elements, but also prepare pre-journey routes by exploring large-scale areas through panning and zooming. Furthermore, the positive results of the evaluation conducted with 10 blind users indicate that blind users are able to use the proposed map system to read street maps and make pre-journey routes in unknown areas, with acquired configurational knowledge and route knowledge. Two-thirds of participants prefer swell-paper maps with only two zoom levels.