http://talking-points.org

A Mobile Context-based Information System for Urban

Orientation of Sighted and Visually-Impaired Users

presented by

Michelle EscobarUniversity of MichiganSchool of Information

http://talking-points.org/2008/09/23/addw-conference

http://talking-points.orgPhoto © OliverN5 (flickr.com)

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Lots of Visual, Serendipitous Information in Urban

Environments

http://talking-points.org

For Visually-Impaired people it looks different

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Our Answer: Talking-Points location

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Talking-Points System

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Design Objectives

• Following a user centered design process

• Making the device unobtrusive in terms of form factor and user interaction

• Leveraging community-generated location information

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Follow user-centered design processes

Early focus on the user

Active user participation throughout the

project

Early prototyping

Continuous iteration of design solutions

Multidisciplinary design team

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Creating scenarios

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Simulating the system

WOz (Wizard of Oz) study:

Human plays role of system interpreting user inputs and issuing appropriate response according to predefined rules modeling the intended system behavior

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Other Influences

Observational interviews

Focus group

User testing

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Open source software

• Open source software encourages personalization to meet user’s needs

• Java

• CMU Sphinx library

• FreeTTS

FreeTTS

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Adoption of an unobtrusive device

• Assistive technology devices tend to have a high abandon rate

• Devices that are inconspicuous do not force “disabled” status on individuals

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Hardware Components• OQO

– Bluetooth– Headphone– EVDO/GPRS Internet

Connectivity– Small– Long-lasting Battery

• Headset– Bluetooth– Long-lasting Battery

• Bluetooth beacon– Durable– Unobtrusive– Unique MAC address

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Community-generated location information

• Talking-Points website

• Ownership of tags

• Database accrued from community & other sites

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Future Work

Limitations of Bluetooth as a location-

tagging technology

Lack of orientation information impedes

usability

Textually-submitted content may not be

suitable for speech-based delivery

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Questions?

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Contact Information

Talking-Pointstalkingpoints@umich.edu

http://talking-points.org

Google Code:

http://code.google.com/p/

talkingpoints-2/

Michelle Escobarescobarm@umich.edu

www.umich.edu/~escobarm