Analysis of Wayfinding Strategies of Blind People Using Tactile Maps

AbstractThe current work aims to analyse the wayfinding strategies for blind people when interacting with a tactile map so as to plan an unfamiliar route. It results from reflections carried out as from research on the support to navigation by blind pedestrians whose study objective was the guided decision-making of 4 congenital blind, 4 adventitious blind and 4 low-vision blind in the process of route finding. The field study took place at the Education Faculty of the Federal University of Pernambuco – Recife – Brazil. The proposed experiment has been divided in 2 phases: learning and experimentation. Each one of them consisted of 3 steps with the following tasks for each user: plan a route, perform and represent it. A map was made upon a wooden structure covered by cardboard, upon which acetate was laid on the circulation areas. Different textures indicating the route to be followed by volunteers as well as the architectonic elements of the space to be experienced were placed upon them. Two reading strategies were used by the blind people to understand the space and plan a route: one based, exclusively, on the tracking of the route to be followed; and another devised as from the tracking of the general map. Those who limited their knowledge of the environment through the route, tended to memorize a lot of the decision-making orientation, thus causing hesitations and route deviation. Those who tracked the whole map, developed a panoramic idea of the space, generally related to some of the elements in the environment connected to the route structure, thus facilitating their spatial orientation. Due to the complexity of the wayfinding task for blind people, it is suggested that the tactile map is not studied in isolation but as from an ergonomic systemic view which considers it as an integral part of the information system which favours the decision-making orientation