Voice Navigation Created by VIP Improves Spatial Performance in People with Impaired Vision

Abstract

The difficulty associated with spatial navigation is one of the main obstacles to independent living for visually impaired people. With a lack of visual feedback, visually impaired people must identify information from the external environment through other sense organs. This study employed an observational survey to assess voice navigation version A, created by visually impaired people, and voice navigation version B, created by non-visually impaired people. Thirty-two simulated visually impaired people were assigned to conduct task assessments of voice navigation version A and version B. For mission 1, the mean completion rate is 0.988 ± 0.049 (version A); the mean error rate is 0.125 ± 0.182 (version A). For mission 2, the mean completion rate is 0.953 ± 0.148 (version A); the mean error rate is 0.094 ± 0.198 (version A). The assessment results concluded that version A has a higher completion rate (p = 0.001) and a lower error rate (p = 0.001). In the assessment of subjective satisfaction, all the indicators regarding the impression of navigation directives in version A were significantly superior to those indicators in version B. It appears that version A has a different logic of framing than version B. In future applications, a voice navigation version shall be built, according to the way visually impaired people think, because it will facilitate the direction guide when there is a lack of visual feedback.