2. Introduction
• Audio map
– For blind and partially sighted users
To explore the city before going outside
– Enable users to focus on locomotion and potential
hazards
– Help users acquire spatial knowledge
3. Introduction
• Evaluation
– To find the most effective map
– Estimate the components of the map
• Simulated 3D sound, synthetic speech and sounds to
represent steps, turns, collisions etc
– Wayfinding challenges
• The core function and the purpose of the map
4. Previous Work and its Influence
• Spatial knowledge and wayfinding
– Wayfinding
• Goal-centered (requires destination)
• Requires cognitive problem solving in distal space
main purpose of map, keeping users on track
– Spatial knowledge
• Spatial sematic hierarchy (Kuipers)
– Good descriptions are short
• Informations should be trimmed according to landmarks, decision
points, and change points
5. Previous Work and its Influence
• Auditory displays
– Techniques
• Sonification(auditory icons, earcons, percussive)
& Speech(spearcons)
• Auditory icons: naturally occurring sounds
• Earcons: musical motives (rhythmicized sequence of pitches)
that can be grouped
• Synthetic speech
Needs precise balance between three
6. Previous Work and its Influence
• Auditory displays
– Auditory map system
• The number of potential participants should be maximized
• Supervision should not be required
• Web distribution should be possible
• Maps should be prepared before evaluations
7. Design
• System design
– Spatial knowledge and wayfinding
• Audible feedback is given by slight changes through steps
• Cardinal directions are used
• Users can know where they are and can get the overview of
the route by pressing space and return
• Certain sound sources can be filtered
• Designed as easy to learn as possible
• Allows the user to explore any location of the planet
8. Design
• System design
– Auditory display
• Mixing three sound effects
– Auditory icons fade out when voice begin to speak
– Auditory icons and earcons have completely different functions
– Earcons occupy a very narrow band of frequency spectrum
• Auditory icons
– Articulatory directness
• Earcons
– Offer feedback
– Convey information about the options
9. Design
• Evaluation design
• Wayfinding success
– Keeping on track
• Game aspect
– With and with out 3D audio
– Feedback from participants
• Impact of auditory clues
– Sonification index
• Players’s experience of navigating the map
– Wayfinding index
Two items are inversely proportionate on intrinsic grounds
10. Design
• Database design
– Database is transmitted into tables
• 10 columns enough recreate the journey
– User, level, mode, step number, x, y, bearing, date and time, location,
action
• More columns of user’s feed back
– Map doodles, route description, likert responses etc
– All actual movements and most actions is visualized
in color coding
• Each colors of discs convey direction and speed of travel
11. Evaluation
• Hypothesis
– Based on the premise that ambient sounds can
reduce cognitive processing cost
improve performance in wayfinding
• Not all data were fit to contribute to the formal
evaluation
12. Results
• Quantitative analysis
– Wayfinding index
• Reflected the player’s experience of navigating the map
– Sonification index
• Concerned the impact of auditory cues
– Ambient sounds
• Improved the users’ subjective wayfinding experience and
sonification experience
• Helped players to achieve higher coin scores and lower
wrong turn scores
13. Results
• Qualitative analysis
– Doodles and routes drawn by participants
demonstrate that they have acquired detailed route and
survey knowledge
– Example of two participants
• Fully sighted and blind
14. Conclusion
• Ambient 3D audio improves the chances of acquiring
detailed spatial knowledge in absence of visual cues
• Audio maps built from open source tools and community-
created resources have potential to convey complex city
maps
blind and partially sighted people can look up routes and
maps online before they go outside just like sighted people do
• The demographic data of the participants would ensure
the result of the research
– But they couldn’t collect the data
15. Critique
• Astonished by the idea of making a map for blind people
– Map was a visual thing that blind people couldn’t use
• I think it was a good idea to set the comparison group
with full-sighted people
– Shows how the map works well for the blinds
