Literature Reviews
Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.
69 results found tagged indoor navigation.
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"Pray Before You Step Out": Describing Personal and Situational Blind Navigation Behaviors
This paper presents a formative study exploring how 30 adults with vision impairments use technology and personal strategies to navigate both indoor and outdoor environments. Rather than introducing new navigation technology, the research aims to bui…
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Crowdsourcing the Installation and Maintenance of Indoor Localization Infrastructure to Support Blind Navigation
This paper introduces LuzDeploy, a physical crowdsourcing system that coordinates non-expert volunteers to install and maintain Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacon infrastructure for indoor navigation systems used by blind people. The central problem i…
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Path-Guided Indoor Navigation for the Visually Impaired Using Minimal Building Retrofitting
This paper presents the design and evaluation of a cellphone-based indoor navigation system that provides step-by-step path guidance for visually impaired users in unfamiliar buildings with minimal infrastructure requirements. The system combines inf…
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Spotlights and Soundscapes: On the Design of Mixed Reality Auditory Environments for Persons with Visual Impairment
This paper explores the design of information-rich mixed reality (MR) auditory environments to help people with visual impairments form cognitive maps of unfamiliar indoor spaces. The research contrasts two approaches: soundscapes, where virtual obje…
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Use of an Indoor Navigation System by Sighted and Blind Travelers: Performance Similarities across Visual Status and Age
This study evaluates an indoor navigation system using commercial iOS devices and Bluetooth beacons to guide blind and visually impaired (BVI) travelers through complex university buildings. The research compared two navigation conditions: a system-a…
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Traveling More Independently: A Study on the Diverse Needs and Challenges of People with Visual or Mobility Impairments in Unfamiliar Indoor Environments
This comprehensive survey study examines how people with visual impairments (blindness or low vision) and mobility impairments plan and execute trips to unfamiliar indoor environments. The researchers surveyed 125 participants—60 blind, 39 with low v…
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Experimental Evaluation of Multi-scale Tactile Maps Created with SIM, a Web App for Indoor Map Authoring
This paper introduces Semantic Interior Mapology (SIM), a web application that democratizes tactile map creation by allowing anyone to trace a floor plan image and automatically generate embossable tactile maps at multiple scales. Unlike outdoor envi…
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All the Way There and Back: Inertial-Based, Phone-in-Pocket Indoor Wayfinding and Backtracking Apps for Blind Travelers
This paper presents two iOS apps designed to help blind travelers navigate indoor building environments without requiring external infrastructure like Bluetooth beacons or visual markers. The Wayfinding app uses a known floor plan to compute and guid…
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WeAllWalk: An Annotated Data Set of Inertial Sensor Time Series from Blind Walkers
This paper introduces WeAllWalk, an openly accessible and annotated data set of inertial sensor time series collected from blind individuals walking through complex indoor routes. The data set addresses a critical gap in assistive navigation research…
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NavCog3: An Evaluation of a Smartphone-Based Blind Indoor Navigation Assistant with Semantic Features in a Large-Scale Environment
This paper presents NavCog3, a smartphone-based indoor navigation assistant for people with visual impairments, evaluated at scale in a 21,000 m² shopping mall in Japan. Unlike many prior indoor navigation prototypes that were tested only in constrai…