HoldLight helps blind climbers find holds and plan routes indoors

HoldLight: Making Indoor Climbing More Accessible for Blind and Low-Vision Climbers through Layered Route Preview and Real-Time Next-Hold Guidance

Human-Computer Interaction

Summary

Indoor climbing is hard for people who are blind or have low vision because they usually rely on sight and help from others to understand climbing routes and find the next hold. The authors created HoldLight, a system that gives climbing route information before the climb and real-time guidance about the next hold while climbing, along with clear backup instructions if uncertain. They tested the system with climbers and found it helped them better understand routes, navigate holds, and lowered the need for human assistance during climbs. HoldLight shows how technology and human safety support can work together to make climbing more accessible for blind climbers.

What this means in practice

Authors

Chenyu Du, Junyan He, Jiafei Sun, Yue Li

Abstract

Indoor climbing creates access barriers for blind and low-vision (BLV) climbers because route understanding and in-climb next-hold localization are typically visually mediated and socially dependent. We present HoldLight, a workflow-centered accessibility system combining layered pre-climb route preview, concise real-time next-hold cueing, and explicit fallback under uncertainty. We grounded the design through formative inquiry with BLV climbers, refined the interaction via pilot testing, and conducted a controlled within-subjects evaluation comparing HoldLight with a controlled on-demand human-support condition derived from current support practices. Findings provide initial evidence that structured support can improve pre-climb route understanding, support recovery from next-hold uncertainty, and reduce immediate human re-entry for routine route-information clarification under controlled conditions. HoldLight contributes a bounded accessibility workflow, demonstrating where structured route-information is helpful, where explicit fallback is necessary, and how technical assistance can integrate with retained human safety oversight.
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