Audio-Tactile Maps Research
Research on multimodal map interfaces for blind and visually impaired users - combining tactile surfaces, spatial audio, and speech to build spatial mental models.
Key finding: interactive exploration of audio-tactile maps produces spatial knowledge comparable to actually navigating the space in person. Not a degraded version of a visual map. A different kind of spatial object.
Tactile perception is serial not synoptic - you build the model piece by piece rather than scanning it whole. This changes what a map needs to do.
Sources worth reading:
- Rice et al. - Design considerations for haptic and auditory map interfaces. Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 2005
- Spagnol et al. - Current use and future perspectives of spatial audio technologies in electronic travel aids. Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, 2018
- Interactive spatial sonification for non-visual exploration of virtual maps. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2016
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