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Right mix of speech and non-speech: hybrid auditory feedback in mobility assistance of the visually impaired

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Abstract

Despite the growing awareness about mobility issues surrounding auditory interfaces used by visually impaired people, designers still face challenges while creating sound for auditory interfaces. This paper presents a new approach of hybrid auditory feedback, which converts frequently used speech instructions to non-speech (i.e., spearcons), based on users’ travelled frequency and sound repetition. Using a within-subject design, twelve participants (i.e., blind people) carried out a task, using a mobility assistant application in an indoor environment. As surfaced from the study results, the hybrid auditory feedback approach is more effective than non-speech and it is pleasant compared with repetitive speech-only. In addition, it can substantially improve user experience. Finally, these findings may help researchers and practitioners use hybrid auditory feedback, rather than using speech- or non-speech-only, when designing or creating accessibility/assistive products and systems.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank reviewers for their valuable comments/suggestions on the early versions of the paper. Our gratitude goes to the participants for their time and involvement in the study. This work was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 60703040, 61332017), Science and Technology Department of Zhejiang Province (Nos. 2007C13019, 2011C13042).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computer Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China

    Ibrar Hussain, Ling Chen & Gencai Chen

  2. Department of Computer Science, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore, 54700, Punjab, Pakistan

    Hamid Turab Mirza

  3. Information Technology University, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan

    Saeed-Ul Hassan

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  1. Ibrar Hussain
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  2. Ling Chen
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  3. Hamid Turab Mirza
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  4. Gencai Chen
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  5. Saeed-Ul Hassan
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Correspondence to Ling Chen.

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Hussain, I., Chen, L., Mirza, H.T. et al. Right mix of speech and non-speech: hybrid auditory feedback in mobility assistance of the visually impaired. Univ Access Inf Soc 14, 527–536 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-014-0350-7

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