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- Isaksson-Daun, Johan, et al.
(författare)
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Using Portable Virtual Reality to Assess Mobility of Blind and Low-Vision Individuals With the Audomni Sensory Supplementation Feedback
- 2024
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Ingår i: IEEE Access. - 2169-3536. ; 12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Numerous electronic travel aids (ETAs) to increase the mobility of blind or low-vision (BLV) individuals have been proposed. However, the lack of established and well-motivated methods, and of recruiting enough BLV test participants, keeps a successful aid illusory. To combat this, a new aid-agnostic questionnaire focused on mobility, the Desire of Use Questionnaire for Mobility of BLV individuals (DoUQ-MoB) and a new portable, large-scale-exploration virtual reality (VR) system, the Parrot-VR, were employed to evaluate the ETA Audomni. Through VR and Audomni, 19 heterogenous BLV participants traversed large-scale urban environments. Their experiences were probed through the DoUQ-MoB, and their movement analyzed. Numerous results are presented, a highlight being that most participants, 76 %, responded that it was very or extremely likely that they would want to use Audomni along with their current aid. Further, Parrot-VR assists in recruiting a satisfying number of diverse BLV participants; and DoUQ-MoB allows to systematically probe their opinions of an aid, and how it relates to others aids, in a considerable quantity of mobility aid aspects. This work illuminates some shortcomings of Audomni, but also shows a majority of BLV participants actually wanting to use a proposed ETA — a result rarely seen so distinctly in the field, and which encourages the continuing efforts of the project. The results are supported by a novel test procedure, which might serve as future inspiration to the field.
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- Isaksson-Daun, Johan
(författare)
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A Sound Approach Toward a Mobility Aid for Blind and Low-Vision Individuals
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Reduced independent mobility of blind and low-vision individuals (BLVIs) cause considerable societal cost, burden on relatives, and reduced quality of life for the individuals, including increased anxiety, depression symptoms, need of assistance, risk of falls, and mortality. Despite the numerous electronic travel aids proposed since at least the 1940’s, along with ever-advancing technology, the mobility issues persist. A substantial reason for this is likely several and severe shortcomings of the field, both in regards to aid design and evaluation.In this work, these shortcomings are addressed with a generic design model called Desire of Use (DoU), which describes the desire of a given user to use an aid for a given activity. It is then applied on mobility of BLVIs (DoU-MoB), to systematically illuminate and structure possibly all related aspects that such an aid needs to aptly deal with, in order for it to become an adequate aid for the objective. These aspects can then both guide user-centered design as well as choice of test methods and measures.One such measure is then demonstrated in the Desire of Use Questionnaire for Mobility of Blind and Low-Vision Individuals (DoUQ-MoB), an aid-agnostic and comprehensive patient-reported outcome measure. The question construction originates from the DoU-MoB to ensure an encompassing focus on mobility of BLVIs, something that has been missing in the field. Since it is aid-agnostic it facilitates aid comparison, which it also actively promotes. To support the reliability of the DoUQ-MoB, it utilizes the best known practices of questionnaire design and has been validated once with eight orientation and mobility professionals, and six BLVIs. Based on this, the questionnaire has also been revised once.To allow for relevant and reproducible methodology, another tool presented herein is a portable virtual reality (VR) system called the Parrot-VR. It uses a hybrid control scheme of absolute rotation by tracking the user’s head in reality, affording intuitive turning; and relative movement where simple button presses on a controller moves the virtual avatar forward and backward, allowing for large-scale traversal while not walking physically. VR provides excellent reproducibility, making various aggregate movement analysis feasible, while it is also inherently safe. Meanwhile, the portability of the system facilitates testing near the participants, substantially increasing the number of potential blind and low-vision recruits for user tests.The thesis also gives a short account on the state of long-term testing in the field; it being short is mainly due to that there is not much to report. It then provides an initial investigation into possible outcome measures for such tests by taking instruments in use by Swedish orientation and mobility professionals as a starting point. Two of these are also piloted in an initial single-session trial with 19 BLVIs, and could plausibly be used for long-term tests after further evaluation.Finally, a discussion is presented regarding the Audomni project — the development of a primary mobility aid for BLVIs. Audomni is a visuo-auditory sensory supplementation device, which aims to take visual information and translate it to sound. A wide field-of-view, 3D-depth camera records the environment, which is then transformed to audio through the sonification algorithms of Audomni, and finally presented in a pair of open-ear headphones that do not block out environmental sounds. The design of Audomni leverages the DoU-MoB to ensure user-centric development and evaluation, in the aim of reaching an aid with such form and function that it grants the users better mobility, while the users still want to use it.Audomni has been evaluated with user tests twice, once in pilot tests with two BLVIs, and once in VR with a heterogenous set of 19 BLVIs, utilizing the Parrot-VR and the DoUQ-MoB. 76 % of responders (13 / 17) answered that it was very or extremely likely that they would want use Audomni along with their current aid. This might be the first result in the field demonstrating a majority of blind and low-vision participants reporting that they actually want to use a new electronic travel aid. This shows promise that eventual long-term tests will demonstrate an increased mobility of blind and low-vision users — the overarching project aim. Such results would ultimately mean that Audomni can become an aid that alleviates societal cost, reduces burden on relatives, and improves users’ quality of life and independence.
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