User Centered Design of Non-Visual Audio-Haptics

The following article reports result from an extensive study with 25 blind users from Italy and Sweden performed during the summer 2001. The tasks reported here test recognition of geometrical objects, recognition of VRML objects, mathematical surfaces and navigation in a traffic environment. The outcome of these tests show that blind users are able to handle also quite complex objects and environments, and that realistic virtual environments in some cases appear easier to handle than more abstract test environments. This highlights the importance of context, and thus the usefulness of other input channels beside the purely haptic one. Another factor observed to be important is haptic scanning strategy. Tentative results for age, gender and blindness from birth are presented, and the importance of accurate haptic models is pointed out