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

Assistive navigation systems for blind people take images or videos as 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 affects 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 to manipulate 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