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Indoor navigation systems for users who are visually impaired typically rely upon expensive physical augmentation of the environment or expensive sensing equipment; consequently few systems have been implemented. We present an indoor navigation system called Navatar that: (1) exploits the physical characteristics of indoor environments, (2) takes advantage of the unique sensing abilities of users with visual impairments, and (3) minimalistic sensing achievable with low cost accelerometers available in smartphones. Will be published at CHI 2012
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Spatial interaction in natural user interfaces requires users to visually acquire the location of an object, which can then be manipulated using a touch or gesture. This is challenging if you are unable to see or in mobile contexts where the use of a display may be undesirable. This project explores proprioception combined with vibrotactile feedback to appropriate the human body to become a display device that can point out the location of an object, which the user can then interact with using a spatial gesture. Published at TEI 2012.
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Complex motor operations are entirely driven by proprioception; something mobile interfaces may be able to exploit to achieve robust eye and ear free forms of interaction. Existing research has predominantly focused on exploring display less mobile input. This project explores the use of proprioception as an output modality by combining kinesthetic information of a mobile device with vibrotactile feedback, where a different orientation indicates a different message. Published at HAPTICS 2012.
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Users who are blind can play video games using compensatory types of feedback, such as audio or haptics. Unfortunately commercial video games are closed source, which makes adapting them to provide compensatory feedback impossible. This project explores using real time video analysis to detect cues that indicate to the player what to do and when and then provide these as compensatory cues to a visually impaired player. Real time sensory substitution was implemented using Kinect. Published at FDG 2011.
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Syntherella: Feedback Synthesizer for exploring Virtual Worlds with a Screen Reader |
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Published at FDG 2011.
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Users with severe motor impairments interact with computers using a switch which replaces the use of a keyboard or a mouse, which they may be unable to use.
Navigating an avatar in a 3D virtual world is non-linear and requires players to holding a key or hold two or more keys which is difficult to provide using a switch.
A new switch scanning system called hold-and-release was developed. Using simulation hold-and-release scanning was found to be significantly more efficient than existing scanning systems. Published at FDG 2012.
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Pet-N-Punch: Upper Body Tactile/Audio Exergame |
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Published at GI 2011.
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Physical activities typically consist of temporal and spatial challenges that predominantly rely upon eye hand coordination. Bowling is an activity that purely relies upon spatial challenges. We developed a bowling based exergame that can be played with a motion sensing controller. A technique called ``tactile dowsing'' guides the player to point their controller at the pins
using directional vibrotactile feedback, which allows for providing a directed gesture at the pins. Published at ASSETS 2010.
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Lack of physical activity is a serious health concern for individuals who are blind as they have fewer opportunities to engage in physical activity. As a result user who are blind have much higher levels of obesity. We developed a tennis based exergame involving a temporal challenge that can be played using audio/haptic cues using a motion sensing controller. User studies at a sports camp for blind children found this game to engage their users into moderate physical activity.
Published at FDG 2010.
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We identified that virtual worlds that consist of user generated content often lack metadata for their objects. To make virtual worlds accessible to users with visual impairments this is a problem as they rely upon textual descriptions to be available that can be read with a screen reader or tactile display. This project explores human computation to collect labels for virtual world objects using a scavenger hunt game. These labels can then be used to train a classifier to automatically recognize objects without a name.
Published at GI 2010.
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Virtual worlds offer rich 3D environments for social interaction, but they are inaccessible to users with visual impairments as they are entirely visual and lack any textual representation that can be read with a screenreader or tactile display. We implemented a natural language interface on top of Second Life that produces textual output that can be read with a screen reader. Various input commands are implemented that allows the user to issue spatial queries, navigate their avater and interact with the Second Life world. Published at ASSETS 2009.
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Guitar Hero is a popular music game in which players simulate the playing of rock music through a guitar-shaped controller.
This game relies upon being able to perceive visual cues that indicate what input to provide and when. This game is not accessible to users with visual impairments. The presence of music in this game makes it difficult to use audio for sensory substitution. We explore the use of vibrotactile feedback provided using a custom glove we developed that has vibrotactors attached to each finger. Published at ASSETS 2008.
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