People with a visual impairment (PVI) often experience difficulties with wayfinding. Current navigation applications have limited communication channels and do not provide detailed enough information to support PVI. By transmitting wayfinding information via multimodal channels and combining these with wearables, we can provide tailored information for wayfinding and reduce the cognitive load. This study presents a framework for multimodal wayfinding communication via smartwatch. The framework consists of four modalities: audio, voice, tactile and visual. Audio and voice messages are transmitted using a bone conduction headphone, keeping the ears free to focus on the environment. With a smartwatch vibrations are directed to a sensitive part of the body (i.e., the wrist), making it easier to sense the vibrations. Icons and short textual feedback are viewed on the display of the watch, allowing for hands-free navigation.
In the Netherlands, over 40% of nursing home residents are estimated to have visual impairments. This results in the loss of basic visual abilities. The nursing home environment fits more or less to residents’ activities and social participation. This is referred to as environmental fit. To raise professional awareness of environmental fit, an Environmental Observation tool for the Visually Impaired was developed. This tool targets aspects of the nursing home environment such as ‘light’, the use of ‘colours and contrasts’ and ‘furnishing and obstacles’. Objective of this study is to validate the content of the observation tool to have a tool applicable for practice. Based on the content validity approach, we invited a total of eight experts, six eye care professionals and two building engineering researchers, to judge the relevance of the items. The Item Content Validity approach was applied to determine items to retain and reject. The content validity approach led to a decrease in the number of items from 63 to 52. The definitive tool of 52 items contains 21 for Corridors, 17 for the Common Room, and 14 for the Bathroom. All items of the definite tool received an Item-Content Validity Index of 0.875 and a Scale-Content Validity Index of 0.71. The content validity index of the scale and per item has been applied, resulting in a tool that can be applied in nursing homes. The tool might be a starting point of a discussion among professional caregivers on environmental interventions for visually impaired older adults in nursing homes
MULTIFILE
Background: Construction work, squares, busy sidewalks, road crossings and hasty cyclists - these are just a few of the many challenges visually impaired people (VI) encounter when navigating through urban environments. Especially unknown routes require so much concentration and energy, that VI often choose to stay at home or to travel with assistance. The EyeBeacons project investigates how a wayfinding smartphone app for VI can support independent travel.Methods: Two clickable prototypes of a wayfinding app for VI were created based on the user-requirements from a pilot study. The first app contained many personalization options for route planning, while the second app used pre-defined user profiles (wizard) to create personal routes. Both apps were evaluated in a co-creation workshop of 16 participants, consisting of VI (6), VI care professionals (5) and UX/ICT experts (5). During the workshop, several UX design tools (e.g., customer journey maps) were used to evaluate the apps.Findings: Our preliminary results show that both apps were considered to have additional value for VI’s current route planning and wayfinding practices. Surprisingly, the first app, which offered many personalization options but consequently included more interaction steps, was preferred over the optimized wizard design of the second app. The main reason for this choice, was the limited insight on the reasoning behind route selection. Key features that participants missed in both prototype apps included for example, a function to repeat navigation cues on request.Discussion: This study provides valuable new insights for the design of wayfinding apps that allow VI to navigate safely and independently through challenging urban environments. Furthermore, we found that co-creation works well with the target group using common UX design methods as long as some extra facilitation is provided to the VI. By using clickable prototypes, both VI and professionals were able to experience and evaluate the design prototypes.
