Zoom Brown Bag: A Virtual Environment for Training Blind People to Learn to Use Camera-Based Navigation Systems

Abstract:Assistive navigation systems for blind people take images or videos as an input for various tasks such as finding the location of a user, recognizing objects, and detecting obstacles. Though the quality of the images and videos affect the performance of the systems significantly, manipulating a camera to have a clear image with proper framing is a challenging task for blind users. In this research, we explore the interactions between a camera and blind users in assistive navigation systems through interviews with blind participants and researchers in human-computer interaction and computer vision. We further develop a virtual environment where blind users can train themselves on manipulating a camera so that blind users can understand and effectively use gestures in the interactions identified in the interview such as scanning their environments with a camera and maintaining a desired camera position or orientation. This presentation shares the results of the interview, the method to implement the virtual environment, and a plan for evaluating the virtual environment through a user study. https://www.ski.org/users/jonggi-hong Improving Zoom accessibility for people with hearing impairments People with hearing impairments often use lipreading and speechreading to improve speech comprehension. This approach is helpful but only works if the speaker’s face and mouth are clearly visible. For the benefit of people with hearing impairments on Zoom calls, please enable your device’s camera whenever you are speaking on Zoom, and face the camera while you speak. (Feel free to disable your camera when you aren’t speaking.)