Co-Design for Auditory Navigation Solutions
COVID-19 has made traveling as a blind or visually impaired individual (BVI) much riskier and more difficult than before. The need for social distancing and reduced touching of one’s surroundings has a significant negative impact on the orientation and mobility skills of BVI travelers. As a result, people with visual impairments have limited their essential travel, reducing their overall quality of life
The co-design presented in this paper asked a diverse set of six BVIs from the US to discuss problems related to travel during the pandemic and make recommendations for possible solutions
Mentored By
Bruce Walker
bruce.walker@psych.gatech.edu
Problem
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the public and digital inequities faced by BVIs. Based on multiple mixed-methods research papers published on the impact of COVID-19 on BLIs, BLIs have reported significant limitations in excursion opportunities, restricting engagement in leisure activity, shopping for essentials, and health appointments
We wondered how BVIs perceived their access to accurate COVID-19 data or other COVID-related information, and how it affected attitudes and behaviors around travel both inside and outside one's local community
Method
A group co-design was held in March 2021 with six blind and visually impaired individuals (BVIs) from the US. Participants were asked to discuss problems related to travel during the COVID-19 pandemic and make recommendations for possible solutions
Two probes (prototypes) of a non-visual neighborhood travel map, and a non-visual COVID-19 choropleth map (a map using colors or sounds over each state to represent different values) of COVID-19 state data, were shown to participants for inspiration
*example of non-visual travel map
The entire session was independently coded using thematic analysis. First, important quotes that summarize the main points were written down from the session transcript to be "phrasal codes"
The codes were split into two groups: "Relevant Experiences" and "Prototype Review". For the "prototype review" stage of the session, there was both verbal feedback during the session and written feedback that was sent to the researcher over email after the session by half the participants
Initial intercoder reliability was 73.87% across the entire co-design. The coders reviewed and discussed codes and achieved a final intercoder reliability of 100% with 212 codes. The Shared Experiences section contained 102 codes, and the Prototype Review section contained 110 codes (57 for spoken and 53 for written)
All categorized codes can be found below:
Results
Participants gravitated towards the need for information the probes provided and made a number of observations and recommendations for improvement. They wanted more detailed geo-referenced COVID-19 data, including by county, information related to voting, a mobile app, and more detailed building information, such as doors on the travel map
BVIs have reported significant limitations in excursion opportunities, restricting engagement in leisure activity, shopping for essentials, and health appointments
Discussion
COVID-19 has had a dramatic negative impact on the traveling behavior of BVIs, but much of the impact stems from inaccessibility and conflicting guidance from the CDC with critical O&M behavior
It is critical that work be done to ensure these inequities don't persist into the next global disaster. This is necessary to make resources more accessible to BVIs and to maintain their quality of life, health, and well-being
Public transportation and ridesharing are the only methods of independent transportation for BVIs until fully autonomous vehicles arrive, so priority needs to be placed on making this form of transportation as inexpensive and safe as possible
All governments must bring BVIs in as co-designers to contribute as equal members in the emergency response process. Digital data also needs to be made accessible, especially when life or death health risks are being waged on if it’s safe to step out of the door