VEMI Lab

Published: 2023

Publication Name: Autonomous is Not Enough: Designing Multisensory Mid-Air Gestures for Vehicle Interactions Among People with Visual Impairments

Abstract:

Should fully autonomous vehicles (FAVs) be designed inclusively and accessibly, independence will be transformed for millions of people experiencing transportation-limiting disabilities worldwide. Although FAVs hold promise to improve efficient transportation without intervention, a truly accessible experience must enable user input, for all people, in many driving scenarios (e.g., to alter a route or pull over during an emergency). Therefore, this paper explores desires for control in FAVs among (n=23) people who are blind and visually impaired. Results indicate strong support for control across a battery of driving tasks, as well as the need for multimodal information. These findings inspired the design and evaluation of a novel multisensory interface leveraging mid-air gestures, audio, and haptics. All participants successfully navigated driving scenarios using our gestural-audio interface, reporting high ease-of-use. Contributions include the first inclusively designed gesture set for FAV control and insight regarding supplemental haptic and audio cues.

Keywords: Spatial audio, Accessible design, Gestures, Autonomous vehicles, Interfaces for blind or visually impaired individuals, Situational awareness

Citation: Paul D. S. Fink, Velin Dimitrov, Hiroshi Yasuda, Tifany L. Chen, Richard R. Corey, Nicholas A. Giudice, and Emily S. Sumner. 2023. Autonomous is Not Enough: Designing Multisensory Mid-Air Gestures for Vehicle Interactions Among People with Visual Impairments . In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’23), April 23– 28, 2023, Hamburg, Germany. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 13 pages. https: //doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580762 International, USA. DOI: http://doi.org/10.54941/ahfe1003586

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