Echo-house

Abstract

The graphics-intensive nature of most virtual environments (VEs) prevents many people with visual impairment from being able to successfully explore them. A percentage of the population of people with visual impairment are known to use echolocation -sound waves and their reflections-to better explore their surroundings. In this paper, we describe the development of an echolocation-enabled VE (Echo-House) and evaluate the feasibility of using echolocation as a novel technique to explore this environment. Results showed that echolocation gave participants an improved sense of space in the VE. However, the evaluation also identified a range of orientation and mobility issues and found that participants needed additional support to gain confidence in their use of echolocation in the VE. Our findings suggest that with proper support, echolocation has the potential to improve access to VEs for people who are blind or visually impaired by revealing features that would be otherwise inaccessible.

Accessibility of games and game-based applications: A systematic literature review and mapping of future directions

“…The code 'elderly' emerged as I encountered studies on accessibility of game technologies for the elderly. The word 'elderly' was used in said Beckett et al, 2016;Beeston et al, 2018;Bouaine et al, 2020;Brooks, 2017;Brown and Anderson, 2021;Cairns et al, 2019aCairns et al, , 2019bFortes et al, 2017;Garcia and de Almeida Neris, 2020;Granzotto Llagostera, 2019;Kaigo and Okura, 2020;Leite et al, 2019;Merritt, 2017;Thompson and Syrett, 2018;Tyagi et al, 2019;Westin et al, 2018;Dupire, 2016a, 2016b) 4 Studies (da Silva et al, 2018;Flores-Garzón et al, 2020;Mangiron, 2016;Shooster et al, 2017) 27 Studies (Andrade et al, 2018(Andrade et al, , 2019(Andrade et al, , 2020…”

“…Visual disabilities have consistently received academic research attention while auditory and mobility disabilities have significantly fluctuated in popularity. Amaro et al, 2016;Andrade et al, 2018Andrade et al, , 2019Andrade et al, , 2020Bar-El et al, 2018;Beckett et al, 2016;Brown and Anderson, 2021;Bulgarelli et al, 2018;Cairns et al, 2019b;Chakraborty et al, 2017;Compañ-Rosique et al, 2019;Escudeiro et al, 2017;Flores-Garzón et al, 2020;Fortes et al, 2017;Garcez et al, 2020;Gerling et al, 2020;Gonçalves et al, 2020;Grabski et al, 2016;Granzotto Llagostera, 2019;Kaigo and Okura, 2020;Khaliq and Torre, 2019;Leite et al, 2019;López et al, 2016;…”

“…Adolescents without disabilities (Alfredsson Ågren et al, 2020;Grabski et al, 2016;Neto et al, 2019Neto et al, , 2020 4 Adults with disabilities (Andrade et al, 2018(Andrade et al, , 2019(Andrade et al, , 2020Araújo et al, 2017;Bandyopadhyay and Dalvi, 2017;Beeston et al, 2018;Buzzi et al, 2016Buzzi et al, , 2019Cabrera et al, 2017;Cairns et al, 2019b;Chakraborty et al, 2017;Chebka and Essalmi, 2015;Compañ-Rosique et al, 2019;Contreras et al, 2019;de Lima Salgado et al, 2019;Ferdous et al, 2016;Fernández et al, 2019;Furini et al, 2019;Gerling et al, 2016aGerling et al, , 2016bGerling et al, , 2...…”

Playing Blind

“…More recently, echolocation has been proposed as a navigational tool in virtual environments [4]. Research over the past seventy years has shown that echolocation -using selfemitted noises such as mouth-clicks as well as the ambient sounds generated by a person's cane or shoes-is an effective tool for human navigation [96].…”

“…Research over the past seventy years has shown that echolocation -using selfemitted noises such as mouth-clicks as well as the ambient sounds generated by a person's cane or shoes-is an effective tool for human navigation [96]. The prospect of supporting echolocation in virtual environments promises an additional tool for PVI, who already use a range of strategies in negotiating in-game virtual environments [4,103].…”