Literature Reviews
Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.
106 results found tagged wayfinding.
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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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Planning Your Journey in Audio: Design and Evaluation of Auditory Route Overviews
This research develops and evaluates an auditory route overview system that enables blind users to preview walking routes before embarking on journeys. The system addresses a critical gap: while many navigation aids support live guidance, few tools a…
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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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TactileMaps.net: A Web Interface for Generating Customized 3D-Printable Tactile Maps
This demonstration paper presents TactileMaps.net, a web-based tool that enables visually impaired users to independently generate customized 3D-printable tactile maps. Tactile maps are valuable tools for helping blind individuals understand their en…
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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…
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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…
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Virtual Navigation for Blind People: Building Sequential Representations of the Real-World
This paper investigates whether blind people can build accurate mental representations of real-world routes by virtually navigating them on a smartphone before physically visiting the location. Sighted people routinely study maps before visiting new …
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DroneNavigator: Using Leashed and Free-Floating Quadcopters to Navigate Visually Impaired Travelers
This paper explores an unconventional approach to navigation assistance for visually impaired travelers: using small, lightweight quadcopters as mobile sound and haptic sources to guide users through indoor environments. While existing navigation sys…