Vibrotactile Navigation for Visually Impaired People

Abstract

One of the largest impediments to autonomous grocery shopping for blind people is navigation. In a still ongoing multi-year research process we followed a user centred approach to explore how visually impaired people can be supported in indoor navigational issues, whether vibrotactiles are the right channel for this, where the actuators should sit on the body, whether the hardware solution would be acceptable for people to use on a daily basis in public and how they feel about the system after three weeks of usage.