The world of touch: an international survey of tactile maps. Part 2: design

Rowell, Jonathan; Ongar, Simon

doi:10.1177/026461960302100304

Cited by 30 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 4 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Therefore, increasing the automation and reducing the time spent on map design would be greatly helpful. When transcribers and mobility instructors are interviewed, spacing is clearly ranked as one of the main variables for tactile map design [10], which also pleads for using more automated cartography. With interactive interfaces widering multi-modal interfaces [11], automated processing will be mandatory, such as multi-scale web mapping is accelerating the need for automated topographic cartography.…”

Section: Related Work 21 On Demand Mapping For Visually Impaired Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, we found no evidence on the optimum size of a tactile map. However, the visually impaired participants of a survey on where the map should be used (at home, in situ...) commented that due to their weight, tactile maps should not be portable [10]. So the fact that the map is portable or not should not be a factor for determining the best size for a tactile map.…”

Section: Guidelines For Understandable Tactile Mapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Automatic derivation of on-demand tactile maps for visually impaired people: first experiments and research agenda

Touya

Christophe

Favreau

et al. 2018

International Journal of Cartography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Tactile maps are essential tools for visually impaired people to comprehend space and to support the simple pedestrian trips made difficult by their disability. Tactile maps are created manually and printed by specialists, and it takes a large amount of time to create a new one, which prevents using them on demand for everyday use. As a consequence, researchers and cartographers try to automate this creation process, but the existing automated derivation processes do not include generalization or advanced stylization steps, which limits their effectiveness. This paper reports first experiments to include such complex automated cartography processes to provide on demand tactile maps for visually impaired people. These first experiments were more intended to raise real research issues than solve them, and the paper discusses these issues in a research agenda to achieve automatically derived tactile maps.

show abstract

Section: Related Work 21 On Demand Mapping For Visually Impaired Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Guidelines For Understandable Tactile Mapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automatic derivation of on-demand tactile maps for visually impaired people: first experiments and research agenda

Touya

Christophe

Favreau

et al. 2018

International Journal of Cartography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The guidelines should take into account the differences in age, vision and other abilities of the potential users. The design should take into account and include the map size and format, the choice of symbols and the scale [11]. The current article tackles these questions based on a questionnaire on existing public tactile maps in Finland and their usability and use within O&M instruction procedure.…”

Section: Factors Affecting Readability Of Tactile Mapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tactile maps – Finnish O&M instructors’ experiences on usability and accessibility

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

For a person with a visual impairment, the quality of life means independence and equality with the sighted people. For this, independent travel and navigation is essential. Orientation within different types of environments is a challenge and tactile maps are key elements for this. It can also be used for learning about new routes independently. A tactile map is an image of spatial information and figure that uses raised lines and surfaces when introducing a certain area in 3D form. For a public tactile map to be useful, it has to contain consistent information for the user.In this study we present results from a survey for the orientation and mobility (O&M) instructors of Finland about usability and ideas for improvement concerning public tactile maps. We sent the survey questionnaire for 30 O&M instructors by electronic mail and there was also a possibility to answer by paper. Altogether we received 24 answers. The main finding was that most of the O&M instructors did not use public tactile maps during the sessions.

show abstract

“…Most of these issues relate to the map authoring and production process or to limitations of the tangible output. Traditional tactile maps consist of raised elements conveying spatial properties (points, lines, and regions), surface attributes conveying symbolic properties and feature characteristics (dots/dashes, texture variation, and line-height/thickness), and braille labels to convey feature names or semantic information (for reviews, see Edman, 1992;Rowell and Ungar, 2003b). The authoring process for effectively converting visual maps into tactile analogs or developing these materials from scratch involves specialized human expertise, which is expensive in terms of both time and labor costs.…”

Section: Background Traditional Tactile Mapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Mapping Without Vision: Comparing Wayfinding Performance After Learning From Digital Touchscreen-Based Multimodal Maps vs. Embossed Tactile Overlays

Giudice

Guenther

Jensen

et al. 2020

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article starts by discussing the state of the art in accessible interactive maps for use by blind and visually impaired (BVI) people. It then describes a behavioral experiment investigating the efficacy of a new type of low-cost, touchscreen-based multimodal interface, called a vibro-audio map (VAM), for supporting environmental learning, cognitive map development, and wayfinding behavior on the basis of nonvisual sensing. In the study, eight BVI participants learned two floor-maps of university buildings, one using the VAM and the other using an analogous hardcopy tactile map (HTM) overlaid on the touchscreen. They were asked to freely explore each map, with the task of learning the entire layout and finding three hidden target locations. After meeting a learning criterion, participants performed an environmental transfer test, where they were brought to the corresponding physical layout and were asked to plan/navigate routes between learned target locations from memory, i.e., without access to the map used at learning. The results using Bayesian analyses aimed at assessing equivalence showed highly similar target localization accuracy and route efficiency performance between conditions, suggesting that the VAM supports the same level of environmental learning, cognitive map development, and wayfinding performance as is possible from interactive displays using traditional tactile map overlays. These results demonstrate the efficacy of the VAM for supporting complex spatial tasks without vision using a commercially available, low-cost interface and open the door to a new era of mobile interactive maps for spatial learning and wayfinding by BVI navigators.

show abstract

The world of touch: an international survey of tactile maps. Part 2: design

Cited by 30 publications

References 4 publications

Automatic derivation of on-demand tactile maps for visually impaired people: first experiments and research agenda

Automatic derivation of on-demand tactile maps for visually impaired people: first experiments and research agenda

Tactile maps – Finnish O&M instructors’ experiences on usability and accessibility

Cognitive Mapping Without Vision: Comparing Wayfinding Performance After Learning From Digital Touchscreen-Based Multimodal Maps vs. Embossed Tactile Overlays

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About