TouchingSpace enables blind users to explore maps with sounds and touch
"I didn't know how to read a map, but now I can": TouchingSpace, an Audio-Haptic Map for Blind and Low-Vision Readers
Human-Computer Interaction
Summary
People who are blind or have low vision often find it hard to understand maps before traveling. The authors created TouchingSpace, a system that uses a laptop trackpad with fixed areas to represent outdoor places. Users can feel vibrations and hear sounds as they explore the map and ask questions with speech. A study showed this helped users find locations, recognize them, and plan future travel more independently.
What this means in practice
- •For assistive technology developers: Create audio-haptic map tools for blind users that combine touch feedback and speech interaction on standard laptops.$Commercial implications: Enables development of commercial accessible mapping software improving travel preparation for blind and low-vision users.
- •For mobile app developers: Integrate multi-sensory map exploration features into navigation apps to support users with vision impairments.
Authors
Li Liu, Yihe Wang, Jiaming Qu, Ashmita Dua, David T. Lee, Leilani H. Gilpin
Abstract
Accessible map systems either make a layout explorable by hand or convey information through speech; few combine both to support pre-travel spatial understanding for blind and low-vision (BLV) people. We present TouchingSpace: a system that retrieves map data for an outdoor place and renders its surroundings as bounded regions at fixed trackpad positions. During exploration, users receive audio and haptic feedback and can ask a conversational agent open-ended questions. We conducted a user study with fourteen BLV participants who explored a place using TouchingSpace and reflected on the experience. We found participants used sound and vibration to locate places and speech to identify and describe them; the bounded surface supported discovery, revision, and spatial checks by hand; they expected this awareness to support future travel. TouchingSpace demonstrates how a laptop trackpad can support self-directed spatial exploration. These findings suggest accessible AI maps should ground conversation on bounded, user-controlled spatial surfaces.