Design and User Satisfaction of Interactive Maps for Visually Impaired People

TL;DR

This paper presents a multimodal interactive map prototype for visually impaired users, combining tactile, touch, and audio features, and evaluates user satisfaction across diverse user groups.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multimodal interactive map prototype and a method for assessing user satisfaction, demonstrating high acceptance regardless of user background.

Findings

High user satisfaction with the prototype

Satisfaction independent of age or visual experience

Effective integration of tactile, touch, and audio modalities

Abstract

Multimodal interactive maps are a solution for presenting spatial information to visually impaired people. In this paper, we present an interactive multimodal map prototype that is based on a tactile paper map, a multi-touch screen and audio output. We first describe the different steps for designing an interactive map: drawing and printing the tactile paper map, choice of multi-touch technology, interaction technologies and the software architecture. Then we describe the method used to assess user satisfaction. We provide data showing that an interactive map - although based on a unique, elementary, double tap interaction - has been met with a high level of user satisfaction. Interestingly, satisfaction is independent of a user's age, previous visual experience or Braille experience. This prototype will be used as a platform to design advanced interactions for spatial learning.