Proprioception and audio feedback as a means of accessible 3D interaction for the visually impaired

Abstract

The World Health Organization estimates that there are 285 million people with severe visual impairment in the world. With the advent of technology, virtual 3D environments are increasingly being used in several applications. Many of these applications, however, are not accessible to users with visual impairment. Our goal is to develop an innovative technique for 3D interaction to allow the identification of virtual objects with autonomy by the users, exploring only proprioception, audio feedback and low cost devices. We developed a prototype application implementing this technique and then ran an experiment with 8 visually impaired participants, who should use it to differentiate between virtual objects. Results were rather positive, with approximately 84% of correct answers without any prior training. This suggests that our proposed technique can benefit people with visual impairment in tasks that require interaction with 3D virtual objects in different areas of application, including in education. And it does so with good usability and accessibility as well as using only existing devices with relatively low cost and good availability.