Although studies about assistive navigation and technologies are becoming more popular in recent decades, the researchers assert that current studies have been too narrow in its perspective of people with disabilities.

For this particular study, researchers worked with technology users with a broad and diverse range of disabilities to discover similarities and differences in their own navigation tastes. Then they used those findings to create a schema that can inform the design of future technologies.

The project was led by Maya Gupta, an alumna of UMBC’s data systems program and current UCI graduate student in informatics; Ravi Kuber, associate professor of information systems in UMBC; and Stacy Branham, assistant professor of informatics at UCI. The study was accepted from the 2020 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2020).

Although the conference was cancelled because of COVID-19, the study was published in online conference event and made accessible as a digital presentation on May 20. The research was funded by Toyota, as part of the University Mobility Challenge to improve navigation experiences.

The participants in this research have visual, mobility, cognitive, and hearing disabilities, in addition to disabilities related to aging.

We greatly believe that understanding common needs of different groups will eventually lead to a more universal design for future technologies towards having more equal life experience in the society.”Ali Abdolrahmani, UMBC Ph.D. student

In the information, the researchers could identify main themes within the navigation techniques used by people within this study. They revealed crucial similarities in preferences across individuals with various types of disabilities, such as experiencing difficulty navigating in the existence of a massive crowd. In addition they noted key differences in tastes, such as proximity of visitors. By way of instance, individuals with visual impairments preferred to utilize the sound of nearby traffic for a way of maintaining to a straight path, but it induced distraction and disorientation for others.

Based on the preferences of their research participants, the researchers were able to identify a schema for designers to use so as to think about the consumer experience for people with a range of abilities. This fits inside a relevant trend in technology design: universal usability. Having the ability to make navigation technologies which are useable for as broad and diverse a population as possible helps to promote accessibility for all users. It also reduces stigma against people with diverse skills.
UMBC Ph.D. student Ali Abdolrahmani, that has assisted in conducting interviews with participants and analyzing the collected data, has a private interest in expanding technologies for those who have disabilities, as he explains as blind.

The findings of the research may be used to produce prototypes and systems that better support navigation according to an individual’s preferences.

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