Haptically-assisted interfaces for persons with visual impairments

Abstract

Persons with visual impairments may encounter difficulties in their activities of daily living. To alleviate the situation, the use of assistive devices has been proposed in the past. In the development of such devices, haptic feedback has received increasing attention over the years. Notably, touch stimuli do not block or distort the auditory signals coming from the environment. In this chapter, we first will provide a brief overview of related work on haptically-assisted solutions for helping persons with visual impairments. Next, we address electronic travel aids that employ haptic feedback to support safe and independent ambulation and navigation of these users. A newly developed system and several related studies with end users will be discussed. Finally, haptically-assisted solutions to provide access to visual media on mobile devices will be addressed. A number of prototype systems, combining shape displays with surface haptics will be covered.