Abstract
Tactile maps could increase the mobility of people with blindness and visual impairments. Most research on the design and development of tactile maps focuses on outdoor environments, whereby indoor environments greatly differ in terms of represented objects, structure, information, and purpose of use. Studies on the design and use of tactile indoor maps are missing, so it is still unclear how textures can be used effectively in tactile maps and which are suitable for which areas and contexts. As a first step, we therefore conducted an expert user study with four blind participants to determine the challenges and benefits of textures in tactile indoor maps. Afterward, we initiated a follow-up study with two experts from the initial study to evaluate the influence of different elevation levels and production methods (swell paper and embossed maps) on the recognition of different textures, symbols, Braille labels, and structure of the building. We observed an influence of the elevation level of the texture on the recognition of map elements. Furthermore, the perceived structure of the texture influences the recognizability of the map elements. As a result, we identified suitable types of textures for rooms and floors in tactile indoor maps.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Berla, E.P., Murr, M.J.: The effects of noise on the location of point symbols and tracking a line on a tactile pseudomap. J. Special Educ. 9(2), 183–190 (1975)
Braille Authority of North America and Canadian Braille Authority: Guidelines and standards for tactile graphics (2010). http://www.brailleauthority.org/tg
Brock, A.M.: Touch the map! designing interactive maps for visually impaired people. SIGACCESS Access. Comput. (105), 9–14 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1145/2444800.2444802
Brock, A.M., Truillet, P., Oriola, B., Picard, D., Jouffrais, C.: Interactivity improves usability of geographic maps for visually impaired people. Hum.-Comput. Interact. 30(2), 156–194 (2015)
Charitakis, K.: Specification of symbols used on audio-tactile maps for individuals with blindness. testing results (2017). https://www.atmaps.eu/deliverables/ATMAPS-D_2_5-Testing_results_report.pdf
Culbert, S.S., Stellwagen, W.T.: Tactual discrimination of textures. Percept. Mot. Skills 16(2), 545–552 (1963)
Engel, C., Weber, G.: Analyzing the design of tactile indoor maps. In: Ardito, C., Lanzilotti, R., Malizia, A., Petrie, H., Piccinno, A., Desolda, G., Inkpen, K. (eds.) INTERACT 2021. LNCS, vol. 12932, pp. 434–443. Springer, Cham (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85623-6_26
Lambert, L., Lederman, S.: An evaluation of the legibility and meaningfulness of potential map symbols. J. Vis. Impairment Blindness 83(8), 397–403 (1989)
Lee, C.L.: An evaluation of tactile symbols in public environment for the visually impaired. Appl. Ergon. 75, 193–200 (2019)
Lobben, A., Lawrence, M.: The use of environmental features on tactile maps by navigators who are blind. Prof. Geogr. 64(1), 95–108 (2012)
Loitsch, C., Müller, K., Engel, C., Weber, G., Stiefelhagen, R.: AccessibleMaps: addressing gaps in maps for people with visual and mobility impairments. In: Miesenberger, K., Manduchi, R., Covarrubias Rodriguez, M., Peňáz, P. (eds.) ICCHP 2020. LNCS, vol. 12377, pp. 286–296. Springer, Cham (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58805-2_34
Nolan, C.Y., Morris, J.E.: Improvement of tactual symbols for blind children. Final report (1971)
Prescher, D., Bornschein, J.: Richtlinien zur umsetzung taktiler grafiken (2016). https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa-196167
Prescher, D., Bornschein, J., Weber, G.: Consistency of a tactile pattern set. ACM Trans. Accessible Comput. (TACCESS) 10(2), 1–29 (2017)
Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities Inc.: Guidelines on conveying visual information (2005). http://printdisability.org/guidelines/guidelines-on-conveying-visual-information-2005
Rowell, J., Ongar, S.: The world of touch: an international survey of tactile maps. Part 2: design. Brit. J. Vis. Impair. 21(3), 105–110 (2003)
Acknowledgment
The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS) under the grant number 01KM151112. Many thanks to all subjects for their participation in this study.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Engel, C., Weber, G. (2022). Expert Study: Design and Use of Textures for Tactile Indoor Maps with Varying Elevation Levels. In: Miesenberger, K., Kouroupetroglou, G., Mavrou, K., Manduchi, R., Covarrubias Rodriguez, M., Penáz, P. (eds) Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP-AAATE 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13341. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08648-9_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08648-9_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-08647-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-08648-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)