TactIcons: Designing 3D printed map icons for people who are blind or have low vision

Leona Holloway, Matthew Butler, Kim Marriott

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference PaperResearchpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Visual icons provide immediate recognition of features on print maps but do not translate well for touch reading by people who are blind or have low vision due to the low fidelity of tactile perception. We explored 3D printed icons as an equivalent to visual icons for tactile maps addressing these problems. We designed over 200 tactile icons (TactIcons) for street and park maps. These were touch tested by blind and sighted people, resulting in a corpus of 33 icons that can be recognised instantly and a further 34 icons that are easily learned. Importantly, this work has informed the creation of detailed guidelines for the design of TactIcons and a practical methodology for touch testing new TactIcons. It is hoped that this work will contribute to the creation of more inclusive, user-friendly tactile maps for people who are blind or have low vision.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
EditorsStephanie Mueller, Julie R. Williamson, Max L. Wilson
Place of PublicationNew York NY USA
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Number of pages18
ISBN (Electronic)9781450394215
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
EventInternational Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2023 - , Germany
Duration: 23 Apr 202328 Apr 2023
https://chi2023.acm.org/ (Website)
https://dl.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/3544548 (Proceedings)

Conference

ConferenceInternational Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2023
Abbreviated titleCHI 2023
Country/TerritoryGermany
Period23/04/2328/04/23
Internet address

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