Download
1 / 14
140 likes | 235 Views
This study explores the challenges visually impaired individuals face in mobility, highlighting the importance of wayfinding components, understanding their methods of navigation, and promoting inclusive design strategies. Tactile paving, shared spaces, road crossings, and the potential of technology like GPS and augmented reality are discussed to improve accessibility. The role of ICT in providing mobility opportunities, including websites, assistive technologies, and apps, is also examined, considering design, cost, training, and uptake issues.
E N D
Where are we now? Environmental and technological dimensions to visually impaired people’s mobility • Bryan Matthews • June 2014
Visual Impairment and Mobility • Approx. 285m visually impaired people worldwide • Approx. 65% over 65 • In the UK, 46% have contact with someone from the outside world less than once a week! As the population ages … • Approx. 50% would like to go out more often • 29% feel they cannot go out unaccompanied • Independence and consequent health problems caused by • lack of exercise, • poor access to health services and • poor nutrition due to difficulties getting to shops.
Components of Wayfinding • Getting information and using it - R; • Orientation (knowing current location) - R&L; • Navigating (making route decisions) - R&L; • Mental mapping (using cues to predict the best next step) -L; and • Exit and entrance identification (locating and moving through accesspoints) - R; • Closure (detecting and arriving at the right place - L.
Understanding Visually Impaired People’s Methods of Wayfinding • VIPs quite capable of formulating spatio-cognitive maps (Passini et al,1990) • Evidence that VIPs: • “prepared journeys in more detail, • made more decisions during the journey, and • relied on more units of information” • (Passini and Proulx, 1988). • Need to develop an “environmental information system” accessible to all • “a coherent ensemble of architectural and graphic cues that provides the decision-making user with adequate wayfinding information at the appropriate place in a form that is both accessible and understandable” (Passini, 1984).
But better understanding needed of: • what spatial information should be given; • in what form that information should be given; • at what locations information should be given; and • how these vary with key parameters, e.g. visual impairment and time.
Inclusive Design • An inclusive process; • Led by accredited professionals; • Involving users; • With appropriate consultee training • Addressing cases on their merits
Tactile Paving • Source: DfT, 2010
Follow the yellow-brick road • Source: travelinghero.blogspot.com
Shared Space • Removing the demarcations between pedestrian space and vehicle space • Sharing leads to greater freedom for pedestrian and greater caution from motorist • Generally controversial • Specifically problematic for visually impaired mobility • Photo: Exhibition Road, London • (source: www.dailymail.co.uk)
Road Crossings • Range of formal and informal crossing-types Visual, audio and tactile indicators • Current work for Guide Dogs – searching for evidence of: • 1. The importance of road crossings for pedestrians • 2. The extent of use or reliance on crossings • 3. pedestrians' preferences between crossing-types • 4. How pedestrians use crossings (independently or accompanied) • 5. thoughts on informal crossings provided in shared space.
Walk this way… route
Technology • Can technology be the answer? • GPS and mapping technology • Augmented reality • Personal Positioning Systems • Triggered information (Beacons) • Electronic leadlines? • Exciting but not alternative to inclusively designed built environment
The Mobility Opportunities of ICT • Websites, Assistive Technologies and Apps • Design • Cost • Training • Take-up • The digital sub-divide?
