Headlock: A wearable navigation aid that helps blind cane users traverse large open spaces

Traversing large open spaces is a challenging task for blind cane users, as such spaces are often devoid of tactile fea-tures that can be followed. Consequently, in such spaces cane users may veer from their intended paths. Wearable de-vices have great potential for assistive applications for users who are blind as they typically feature a camera and sup-port hands and eye free interaction. We present HEADLOCK, a navigation aid for an optical head-mounted display that helps blind users traverse large open spaces by letting them lock onto a salient landmark across the space, such as a door, and then providing audio feedback to guide the user towards the landmark. A user study with 8 blind users eval-uated the usability and effectiveness of two types of audio feedback (sonification and text-to-speech) for guiding a user across an open space to a doorway. Qualitative results are reported, which may inform the design of assistive wearable technology for users who are blind