An alert mechanism for orientation systems based on Speculative computation

Abstract

The role of assistive technologies is to help users with diminished capabilities in the fulfillment of their everyday tasks. One of such tasks is orientation. It is crucial for the autonomy of an individual and, at the same time, it is one of the most challenging tasks for an individual with cognitive disabilities. Existing solutions that tackle this problem are mostly concerned with guidance, tracking and the display of information. However, there is a dimension that has not been the object of concern in existing projects, the prediction of user actions. This work presents a Speculative Module for an orientation system that is used to alert the user for potential mistakes in his path, anticipating possible shifts in the wrong direction in critical points of the route. With this module, it becomes possible to issue warnings to the user and increase his attention so as to avoid a deviation from the correct path.