Literature Reviews
Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.
80 results found tagged orientation and mobility.
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O&M Indoor Virtual Environments for People Who Are Blind: A Systematic Literature Review
This systematic literature review examines virtual environments designed to support indoor orientation and mobility (O&M) training for people who are blind. The authors analyzed 51 papers describing 32 distinct O&M virtual environments, filtering fro…
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Iterative Design of Sonification Techniques to Support People with Visual Impairments in Obstacle Avoidance
This paper presents WatchOut, a sonification system that conveys real-time obstacle information to blind or visually impaired (BVI) people through non-verbal audio cues. While white canes detect obstacles only within about 1 meter and miss elevated h…
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Tactile Materials in Practice: Understanding the Experiences of Teachers of the Visually Impaired
This research investigates how Teachers of the Visually Impaired (TVIs) create, acquire, and use tactile materials—tactile graphics, 3D models, and real objects—in their educational practice. Despite growing research interest in tactile material crea…
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Beyond the Cane: Describing Urban Scenes to Blind People for Mobility Tasks
This research investigates what environmental information is most useful for blind pedestrians navigating urban spaces, moving beyond obstacle-avoidance to understand comprehensive scene description needs. The authors conducted two experiments with 1…
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Route Descriptions, Spatial Knowledge and Spatial Representations of Blind and Partially Sighted People: Improved Design of Electronic Travel Aids
This paper presents a qualitative study investigating how blind and partially sighted people acquire spatial knowledge, form mental maps, and describe routes—with the goal of informing better design of electronic travel aids (ETAs). The researchers w…
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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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How Can Haptic Feedback Assist People with Blind and Low Vision (BLV): A Systematic Literature Review
This comprehensive systematic literature review examines 20 years (2004–2024) of research on haptic assistive tools for people who are blind or have low vision (BLV), analyzing 132 papers from 11 major HCI venues including CHI, ASSETS, UIST, and IEEE…
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Transcribing Across the Senses: Community Efforts to Create 3D Printable Accessible Tactile Pictures for Young Children with Visual Impairments
This formative study investigates how different stakeholder communities approach designing 3D printable accessible tactile pictures (3DP-ATPs) for young children with visual impairments. While 3D printing offers potential to democratize tactile mater…
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Zebra Crossing Spotter: Automatic Population of Spatial Databases for Increased Safety of Blind Travelers
This paper presents a computer vision system that automatically detects zebra crosswalks by mining satellite imagery and Google Street View, with the goal of augmenting geographic information systems (GIS) to help blind travelers plan safer routes. K…