Designing the indoor navigation experience for severely low vision and blind people in Hong Kong
Prelude
In November 2021, Mapxus embarked on an exploratory proof of concept as a part of the Hong Kong Development Bureau’s smart city initiatives to solve existing mobility challenges for people with vision impairment, which comprised 2.7% of the city’s population.
While previous research studies have indicated the ubiquity of the city’s marginalization of people with disabilities, the team had set out on a mission — to bridge the gap with Mapxuss’ indoor map and positioning capabilities, between people with vision impairment and independence of getting around in indoor spaces.
Scope-setting with research
The process of figuring out the focus of problem discovery involved asking many questions to narrow the scope. Our primary objective was to improve vision-impaired users’ indoor navigation experience. Yet, with a limited understanding of the community’s existing indoor experience and hurdles, the team facilitated a round of user interviews with 10 participants from 5 reputable associations. All participants experienced various levels of vision impairment, which allowed a more comprehensive understanding of the problem space.
While interviewing participants allowed the team to efficiently elicit rich and in-depth qualitative insights on a vision-impaired user’s average day of journey research and planning, as well as travel preferences, we learned that —
💡 Vision-impaired users were reliant on their hearing abilities, the sensibility of smell and touch to understand their immediate environments;
💡 Like how tactile paths were built to illuminate designated routes, they relied on building a memory palace of mental maps, based on their past experience in memorizing checkpoints to help them gauge their journey progress;
💡 When traveling to a destination, especially alone, they were always used to heading out several hours ahead. It was always more important to ensure a safe, predictable journey rather than a speedy one;
💡 While outdoor environments provided ample auditory and sensory cues in designated walkable areas, such as the sounds of cars on the road and tactile paths, vision-impaired users were less comfortable getting around in indoor environments as there were fewer cues to understand their surroundings and walkable paths.
Problem prioritization
The extensive qualitative findings about our users allowed the team to acquire a deeper understanding of the community, as well as existing mobility challenges for people with vision impairment. The challenges were similar — such as the difficulty to locate a restroom at a mall, or facilities designed for accessibility that felt exclusive. However, we also learned that behaviors and interaction with a device drastically differed between users with mild vision impairment vs. severe low vision. Users with mild vision impairment had prominent usage of existing navigation services — with accessibility features such as font size adaptability and zoom-in, whereas low vision users were heavily reliant on the screen reader feature — sound was the only method for them to consume content or interact with.
With that in mind, we took a step back to review our user insights and product analysis of similar products, which suggested that the most popularized navigation applications focused on 1. outdoor scenarios; and 2. product inclusivity for diverse groups, without directly addressing specific needs of low vision users.
We decided to prioritize solving existing challenges for users with severe low or no vision — to build an indoor navigation experience that was not only usable, but intuitive to use.
Product direction
Given consideration in serving our primary users — people with severe or full vision impairment, we identified four design principles that defined the product direction as well as user interaction.
- Audio-first, map second — A focus in designing the experience of sound
- Empower with contextual richness — Map out the spatial relationship between nearby places
- Provide digestible cues when requested by users — Instead of spoon-feeding ongoing location updates throughout the journey
- Design for vision accessibility — Gestures and shortcuts catered for screen reader capability, as well as vision communication adhered to WCAG
Features
The team conducted a total of 3 rounds of usability tests to validate the overall product usability, interaction, as well as technical limitations in certain environments. Several iterative cycles later, primary features of the app were defined:
- Audio buttons: Located in the bottom navigation bar — and are accessible throughout the app experience, audio buttons serve the purpose of always enabling users to learn about their current and nearby locations in real-time. During navigation, users can also learn their current stage of journey on demand
- Browse by category: When located inside a venue, users can browse points-of-interest by primary categories, such as facilities, restaurants, and shops
- Keyword search: Alongside browse by category, users can also find a specific location by keyword search when located inside a venue
- Route summary: An overview of a point-of-interest includes a route summary, which illustrates the suggested route from a user’s current location
- Indoor-to-indoor navigation: A guided real-time navigation journey with specific turn-by-turn instructions of directions, distance, as well as floor level transitions, with an average positioning accuracy of 3 to 5 metres
- Outdoor route overview: While current GPS capabilities may not completely support an accurate navigation experience in outdoor environments, an outdoor route overview is presented to users for when the journey involves a full or partial outdoor journey
What’s next: continuous iteration
As the project came to a close, we identified further research and iteration opportunities to explore into similar contexts — such as public transportation, education, and public facilities. We considered future scenarios in how our product may support an end-to-end journey during various commute methods, and continue to empower mobility independence for the vision-impaired community in Hong Kong and beyond.