João Guerreiro
Dragan Ahmetovic
Daisuke Sato
ABSTRACT
People with visual impairments often have to rely on the assistance of sighted guides in airports, which prevents them from having an independent travel experience. In order to learn about their perspectives on current airport accessibility, we conducted two focus groups that discussed their needs and experiences in-depth, as well as the potential role of assistive technologies. We found that independent navigation is a main challenge and severely impacts their overall experience. As a result, we equipped an airport with a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon-based navigation system and performed a real-world study where users navigated routes relevant for their travel experience. We found that despite the challenging environment participants were able to complete their itinerary independently, presenting none to few navigation errors and reasonable timings. This study presents the first systematic evaluation posing BLE technology as a strong approach to increase the independence of visually impaired people in airports.
Supplemental Material
- Ali Abdolrahmani, William Easley, Michele Williams, Stacy Branham, and Amy Hurst. 2017. Embracing Errors: Examining How Context of Use Impacts Blind Individuals' Acceptance of Navigation Aid Errors. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 4158--4169. Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Federal Aviation Administration. 2017. AC 150/5360--14A - Access to Airports by Individuals with Disabilities. Retrieved in January, 2019 from https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/ AdvisoryCircular/150--5360--14A.pdf.Google Scholar
- Federal Aviation Administration. 2018. Airport Disability Compliance Program. Retrieved in January, 2019 from https://www.faa.gov/about/ofceorg/headquartersofces/acr/ comcivsupport/disabilitycompliance/.Google Scholar
- Dragan Ahmetovic, Cristian Bernareggi, Andrea Gerino, and Sergio Mascetti. 2014. Zebrarecognizer: Efcient and precise localization of pedestrian crossings. 2566--2571. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Dragan Ahmetovic, Cole Gleason, Chengxiong Ruan, Kris Kitani, Hironobu Takagi, and Chieko Asakawa. 2016. NavCog: A Navigational Cognitive Assistant for the Blind. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 90--99. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Dragan Ahmetovic, Uran Oh, Sergio Mascetti, and Chieko Asakawa. 2018. Turn Right: Analysis of Rotation Errors in Turn-by-Turn Navigation for Individuals with Visual Impairments. In Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 333--339. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Fraport TAV Antalya Terminal Isletmeciligi A.S. 2018. Antalya Airport SmartSteps. Retrieved in January, 2019 from https://appadvice.com/ game/app/antalya-airport-smart-steps/1246202175.Google Scholar
- BlindSquare. 2018. BlindSquare iOS Application. Retrieved in January, 2019 from http://blindsquare.com/.Google Scholar
- Stacy M. Branham, Ali Abdolrahmani, William Easley, Morgan Scheuerman, Erick Ronquillo, and Amy Hurst. 2017. "Is Someone There? Do They Have a Gun": How Visual Information About Others Can Improve Personal Safety Management for Blind Individuals. In Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 260--269. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Diana M Brouwer, Gaynor Sadlo, Karen Winding, and Marianne IG Hanneman. 2008. Limitations in mobility: experiences of visually impaired older people. British Journal of Occupational Therapy 71, 10 (2008), 414--421.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Yu-Chung Cheng, Yatin Chawathe, Anthony LaMarca, and John Krumm. 2005. Accuracy Characterization for Metropolitan-scale WiFi Localization. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services (MobiSys '05). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 233--245. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Marc Ciurana, David López, and Francisco Barceló-Arroyo. 2009. SofTOA: Software ranging for TOA-based positioning of WLAN terminals. In International Symposium on Location-and Context-Awareness. Springer, 207--221. Google ScholarDigital Library
- SM Cobb. 2012. National mobility report: Mobility experiences and perceptions of blind and vision impaired persons. Dublin, NCBI and Irish Guide Dogs for the blind (2012), 1--199.Google Scholar
- William Crandall, John Brabyn, Billie Louise Bentzen, and Linda Myers. 1999. Remote infrared signage evaluation for transit stations and intersections. Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development 36, 4 (1999), 341--355.Google Scholar
- Simon Darcy. 2017. Accessibility as a key management component of the Paralympics. In Managing the Paralympics. Palgrave Macmillan, 49--92.Google Scholar
- Navid Fallah, Ilias Apostolopoulos, Kostas Bekris, and Eelke Folmer. 2012. The User As a Sensor: Navigating Users with Visual Impairments in Indoor Spaces Using Tactile Landmarks. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 425--432. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Navid Fallah, Ilias Apostolopoulos, Kostas Bekris, and Eelke Folmer. 2013. Indoor human navigation systems: A survey. Interacting with Computers 25, 1 (2013), 21--33.Google Scholar
- Alexander Fiannaca, Ilias Apostolopoulous, and Eelke Folmer. 2014. Headlock: A Wearable Navigation Aid That Helps Blind Cane Users Traverse Large Open Spaces. In Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS '14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 19--26. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Vítor Filipe, Filipe Fernandes, Hugo Fernandes, António Sousa, Hugo Paredes, and João Barroso. 2012. Blind navigation support system based on Microsoft Kinect. Procedia Computer Science 14 (2012), 94-- 101.Google ScholarCross Ref
- German Flores and Roberto Manduchi. 2016. Experiments with a public transit assistant for blind passengers. In International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs. Springer, 43--50.Google ScholarCross Ref
- German Flores and Roberto Manduchi. 2018. Easy Return: An App for Indoor Backtracking Assistance. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 17, 12 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- American Printing House for the Blind. 2018. Nearby Explorer. Retrieved in January, 2019 from http://www.aph.org/nearby-explorer/.Google Scholar
- Nicholas A Giudice. 2018. Navigating without Vision: Principles of Blind Spatial Cognition. In Handbook of Behavioral and Cognitive Geography. Edward Elgar Publishing, Chapter 15.Google Scholar
- Nicholas A. Giudice and Gordon E. Legge. 2008. Blind Navigation and the Role of Technology. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chapter 25, 479--500.Google Scholar
- Google. 2018. Introducing Android 9 Pie. Retrieved in January, 2019 from https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2018/08/ introducing-android-9-pie.html.Google Scholar
- Thomas L Greenbaum. 1998. The handbook for focus group research. Sage.Google Scholar
- João Guerreiro, Dragan Ahmetovic, Kris M. Kitani, and Chieko Asakawa. 2017. Virtual Navigation for Blind People: Building Sequential Representations of the Real-World. In Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 280--289. Google ScholarDigital Library
- João Guerreiro, Eshed Ohn-Bar, Dragan Ahmetovic, Kris Kitani, and Chieko Asakawa. 2018. How Context and User Behavior Afect Indoor Navigation Assistance for Blind People. In Proceedings of the Internet of Accessible Things (W4A '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 2, 4 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Kotaro Hara, Shiri Azenkot, Megan Campbell, Cynthia L. Bennett, Vicki Le, Sean Pannella, Robert Moore, Kelly Minckler, Rochelle H. Ng, and Jon E. Froehlich. 2015. Improving Public Transit Accessibility for Blind Riders by Crowdsourcing Bus Stop Landmark Locations with Google Street View: An Extended Analysis. ACM Trans. Access. Comput. 6, 2, Article 5 (March 2015), 23 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Suining He and S-H Gary Chan. 2016. Wi-Fi fngerprint-based indoor positioning: Recent advances and comparisons. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 18, 1 (2016), 466--490.Google ScholarDigital Library
- HULOP. 2018. HULOP Human-scale Localization Platform - Github. Retrieved in January, 2019 from https://github.com/hulop/.Google Scholar
- Airports Council International. 2018. Airport Terminal Beacons Recommended Practice. Retrieved in January, 2019 from http: //www.aci.aero/media/6b4d6043--1bab-457c-8352--53c4c51dd634/ 5XBxhA/AboutACI/Priorities/IT-New/Initiativies/Beacons/ACIAirport-Terminal-Beacons-Recommended-Practice.pdf.Google Scholar
- Corinne Iozzio. 2014. Indoor mapping lets the blind navigate airports. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/indoormapping-lets-blind-navigate-airports-180952292/. (2014).Google Scholar
- Hernisa Kacorri, Sergio Mascetti, Andrea Gerino, Dragan Ahmetovic, Valeria Alampi, Hironobu Takagi, and Chieko Asakawa. 2018. Insights on Assistive Orientation and Mobility of People with Visual Impairment Based on Large-Scale Longitudinal Data. ACM Trans. Access. Comput. 11, 1, Article 5 (March 2018), 28 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hernisa Kacorri, Eshed Ohn-Bar, Kris M. Kitani, and Chieko Asakawa. 2018. Environmental Factors in Indoor Navigation Based on RealWorld Trajectories of Blind Users. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 56, 12 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Loizos Kanaris, Akis Kokkinis, Antonio Liotta, and Stavros Stavrou. 2017. Fusing bluetooth beacon data with Wi-Fi radiomaps for improved indoor localization. Sensors 17, 4 (2017), 812.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Fredrick Kunkle. 2017. Blind travelers can get around an airport more easily with new app. Retrieved in January, 2019 from https: //www.washingtonpost.com/news/tripping/wp/2017/12/21/blindtravelers-can-get-around-an-airport-more-easily-with-new-app/.Google Scholar
- Gordon E Legge, Chris Downey, Nicholas A Giudice, and Bosco S Tjan. 2016. Indoor airport wayfnding for blind and visually impaired travelers. In Technical Report to the Federal Aviation Administration, No. DOT/Faa/TC-TN16/54. http://www.airporttech.tc.faa.gov/Download/Airport-SafetyPapers-Publications-Detail/dt/Detail/ItemID/572/Indoor-AirportWayfnding-for-Blind-and-Visually-Impaired-Travelers.Google Scholar
- Bing Li, J Pablo Munoz, Xuejian Rong, Jizhong Xiao, Yingli Tian, and Aries Arditi. 2016. ISANA: wearable context-aware indoor assistive navigation with obstacle avoidance for the blind. In Computer Vision, ECCV Workshops. Springer, 448--462.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Dierna Giovanni Luca and Machà Alberto. 2016. Towards accurate indoor localization using iBeacons, fngerprinting and particle fltering. In 2016 International Conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation (IPIN).Google Scholar
- Roberto Manduchi and James M. Coughlan. 2014. The Last Meter: Blind Visual Guidance to a Target. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3113--3122. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Roberto Manduchi and Sri Kurniawan. 2011. Mobility-related accidents experienced by people with visual impairment. AER Journal: Research and Practice in Visual Impairment and Blindness 4, 2 (2011), 44--54.Google Scholar
- James R Marston and Reginald G Golledge. 2000. Towards an accessible city: Removing functional barriers for the blind and vision impaired: A case for auditory signs. (2000). Technical Report.Google Scholar
- Mei Miao, Martin Spindler, and Gerhard Weber. 2011. Requirements of indoor navigation system from blind users. In Symposium of the Austrian HCI and Usability Engineering Group. Springer, 673--679. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Masayuki Murata, Dragan Ahmetovic, Daisuke Sato, Hironobu Takagi, Kris M Kitani, and Chieko Asakawa. 2018. Smartphone-based Indoor Localization for Blind Navigation across Building Complexes. In Proceedings of the 16th IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom '18). IEEE, 1--10.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Hugo Nicolau, Joaquim Jorge, and Tiago Guerreiro. 2009. Blobby: How to Guide a Blind Person. In CHI '09 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '09). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 3601--3606. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Eshed Ohn-Bar, João Guerreiro, Dragan Ahmetovic, Kris M. Kitani, and Chieko Asakawa. 2018. Modeling Expertise in Assistive Navigation Interfaces for Blind People. In 23rd International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 403--407. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Eshed Ohn-Bar, João Guerreiro, Kris Kitani, and Chieko Asakawa. 2018. Variability in Reactions to Instructional Guidance During SmartphoneBased Assisted Navigation of Blind Users. Proc. ACM Interact. Mob. Wearable Ubiquitous Technol. 2, 3, Article 131 (Sept. 2018), 25 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- En Peng, Patrick Peursum, Ling Li, and Svetha Venkatesh. 2010. A smartphone-based obstacle sensor for the visually impaired. In International Conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing. Springer, 590--604. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. Eduardo Pérez, Myriam Arrue, Masatomo Kobayashi, Hironobu Takagi, and Chieko Asakawa. 2017. Assessment of Semantic Taxonomies for Blind Indoor Navigation Based on a Shopping Center Use Case. In Proceedings of the 14th Web for All Conference on The Future of Accessible Work (W4A '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 19, 4 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Yaniv Poria, Arie Reichel, and Yael Brandt. 2010. The fight experiences of people with disabilities: an exploratory study. Journal of Travel Research 49, 2 (2010), 216--227.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Supriya Raman. 2011. Airport accessibility for travellers with disabilities. Journal of Airport Management 5, 3 (2011), 239--244.Google Scholar
- Dan Reed. 2018. A.I. 'Glasses' Turn Airports, Other Chaotic Places For The Blind Into Liberating Experiences. Retrieved in January, 2019 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielreed/2018/02/06/ a-i-glasses-turn-airports-other-chaotic-places-for-the-blind-intoliberating-experiences.Google Scholar
- Abbas Riazi, Fatemeh Riazi, Rezvan Yoosf, and Fatemeh Bahmeei. 2016. Outdoor difculties experienced by a group of visually impaired Iranian people. Journal of current ophthalmology 28, 2 (2016), 85--90.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Victoria Richards, Annette Pritchard, and Nigel Morgan. 2010. (Re) Envisioning tourism and visual impairment. Annals of Tourism Research 37, 4 (2010), 1097--1116.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Rene Ritchie. 2018. Complete list of Apple Maps 'Look Inside' for Airports. Retrieved in January, 2019 from https://www.imore.com/ apple-maps-indoor-airports.Google Scholar
- Daisuke Sato, Uran Oh, Kakuya Naito, Hironobu Takagi, Kris Kitani, and Chieko Asakawa. 2017. NavCog3: An Evaluation of a SmartphoneBased Blind Indoor Navigation Assistant with Semantic Features in a Large-Scale Environment. In Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 270--279. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jeff Sauro and Joseph S. Dumas. 2009. Comparison of Three Onequestion, Post-task Usability Questionnaires. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '09). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1599--1608. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Morgan Klaus Scheuerman, William Easley, Ali Abdolrahmani, Amy Hurst, and Stacy Branham. 2017. Learning the Language: The Importance of Studying Written Directions in Designing Navigational Technologies for the Blind. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2922--2928. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Martin Spindler, Michael Weber, Denise Prescher, Mei Miao, Gerhard Weber, and Georgios Ioannidis. 2012. Translating foor plans into directions. In International Conference on Computers for Handicapped Persons. Springer, 59--66. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Anja Thieme, Cynthia L. Bennett, Cecily Morrison, Edward Cutrell, and Alex S. Taylor. 2018. "I Can Do Everything but See!" -- How People with Vision Impairments Negotiate Their Abilities in Social Contexts. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 203, 14 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- YingLi Tian, Xiaodong Yang, Chucai Yi, and Aries Arditi. 2013. Toward a computer vision-based wayfnding aid for blind persons to access unfamiliar indoor environments. Machine vision and applications 24, 3 (2013), 521--535.Google Scholar
- Wayfndr. 2017. Open Standard for audio-based wayfnding: Version 1.1. Retrieved in January, 2019 from https://www.wayfndr.net/wpcontent/uploads/2017/12/Wayfndr-Open-Standard-Rec-1.1.pdf.Google Scholar
- William R Wiener, Richard L Welsh, and Bruce B Blasch. 2010. Foundations of orientation and mobility. Vol. 1. American Foundation for the Blind.Google Scholar
- Michele A. Williams, Amy Hurst, and Shaun K. Kane. 2013. "Pray Before You Step out": Describing Personal and Situational Blind Navigation Behaviors. In Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 28, 8 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Limin Zeng, Markus Simros, and Gerhard Weber. 2017. Camera-based Mobile Electronic Travel Aids Support for Cognitive Mapping of Unknown Spaces. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 8, 10 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Airport Accessibility and Navigation Assistance for People with Visual Impairments
Recommendations
Hacking Blind Navigation
CHI EA '19: Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsIndependent navigation in unfamiliar and complex environments is a major challenge for blind people. This challenge motivates a multi-disciplinary effort in the CHI community aimed at developing assistive technologies to support the orientation and ...
PathFinder: Designing a Map-less Navigation System for Blind People in Unfamiliar Buildings
CHI '23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsIndoor navigation systems with prebuilt maps have shown great potential in navigating blind people even in unfamiliar buildings. However, blind people cannot always benefit from them in every building, as prebuilt maps are expensive to build. This paper ...
Investigating touchscreen accessibility for people with visual impairments
NordiCHI '08: Proceedings of the 5th Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction: building bridgesTouchscreen computing devices such as the iPhone are becoming more common. However this technology is largely inaccessible to people with visual impairments. We present the results of a requirements capture study that illustrates the problems with ...
Comments