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Development of a Mobile based Navigation Aid for the Visually Challenged
Aim: To address the need of the target users (visually challenged) for support and assurance while traveling alone by proposing a mobile application using GPS.
Project Brief:
Conceptualization of a mobile application with embedded navigation and tagging systems along with a buddy system to assist free navigation of the visually impaired, by connecting with people. Our target user group for this project was visually impaired individuals of middle to high income strata who value independence and are technologically savvy and located in geographies not infra structurally inclusive of the blind.
The system requirements of a mobile phone to incorporate our concept are wifi connectivity, inbuilt GPS, Voice recorder, Accelerometer (an external step counter configured with the mobile can also be used as an alternative) and a Text to Speech (TTS) engine.
Project Accolade:
One of the Top 7 entries selected world-wide for the USID Forum Nokia Design Challenge 2009. The entry bagged a special mentions in the final round.
Also an article will be published on the proposed solution in the UPA Magazine, throughout the May 2010 issue
Collaborators: Divya Gupta, Diya Gangopadhyay and Kirti Goel
Guide: Self-guided
Nature of the Project: Design Competition Entry
Duration: 3 weeks
Methodology adopted:
- Field Study was done by reading up on the recent/futuristic technology being used for cell phone, PDA's, computer interfaces to support the visually impaired. Also this study involved evaluating the various navigation support devices currently present in the market, like Tom-Tom, for understanding their limitations in supporting our target user base.
- Interviews were conducted with visually impaired people and people working in blind schools, to understand the needs of our target user group at a very intrinsic level. These interviews revealed useful information on how blind people perceive and understand the physical world around them, which led us to pointing out a major limitation of the existing navigation support devices..
- The thought process involved User profiling (Persona development) and brainstorming on the key issues of user’s elementary requirements to understand their preferences/needs.
- Creating Task Flow diagrams for concept organization as demonstrated on the right side panel of the poster shown above..
- Detailing the key features and incorporating their hardware and software modularities in the form of mobile plug-ins and widgets. The two applications suggested are as follows–-
1) GPS Navigation Tagging
Our navigation and tagging system will help the user in confirming that (s)he is on the right route, reduce his/her dependence on memory for remembering routes, and orienting him/her when they are lost. This feature allows the user to record routes with tags on personal landmarks, and use pre-recorded routes as sub routes to reach a destination.
This feature will also allow the user to locate nearby tags when (s)he enters the question, ‘where am I ?’. This aims to help visually impaired users to identify their surroundings/ orientation, by noticing prerecorded tags, similar to how we look at our surroundings for clues when we are lost.
2) Buddy System
The buddy system allows the user to reach out to volunteers around him/her, via Bluetooth/ wifi. When in need the user can use the IVRS menu to select this feature, and send a customized message to the volunteers around him/her. Normal people, having wifi/ Bluetooth activated cell phones, who volunteer (simply a feature they can activate on their cell phones which then sends their location information to our system) to become buddies will get this message. The user can reply as yes/no/ If noone else, for helping the message sender.
However, since this system might take time to get responses, it is not recommended for emergency situations.
- Creating Storyboards to demonstrate how the solution fits into the lifestye of the users.
A flash demo was developed along with an A3 poster to explain the concept.
Go Ahead and explore the story board!
Deliverables:
The concept was delivered in the form of an A3 size poster and a flash demo explaning the concept.
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