Perception of Tactile Symbols by Visually Impaired Older Adults

Abstract

We present a design of an indoor orientation terminal for visually impaired older adults. Interaction is based on buttons, tactile symbols, and audio feedback. The terminal consists of five parts dedicated to a particular function. The tactile symbols mimic real-world objects. We performed three design iterations and conduct evaluations with a total of 17 participants, their mean age was 84.2 years. The results show that usage of real-world objects and low level of symbol abstraction leads to an unambiguous pairing of user expectations and real functions. Introduction of complicated and abstract artifacts like contour objects or complex tactile map was very hard to understand and recognize. Our final design was well accepted by all participants and allowed the participants to orient themselves in the indoor environment.