SONOICE! a Sonar-Voice dynamic user interface for assisting individuals with blindness and visual impairment in pinpointing elements in 2D tactile readers.
Gaspar Ramôa, Vincent Schmidt, Thorsten Schwarz and 2 others
PMID 39246576WHAT IT FOUND
Audio navigation interfaces cut the time blind users took to find elements on tactile maps from nearly a minute to under 20 seconds.
Sonar-based feedback was rated most satisfying, while the combined sonar and voice option was fastest but felt overwhelming to some users.
Key findings
01Trial-and-error took a mean of 57.85 seconds to locate an element, compared to 20.68 seconds for Sonar, 17.58 seconds for Voice, and 15.48 seconds for Sonoice.
02Only 4 of 40 trial-and-error attempts successfully located the target within the 60-second limit, whereas the audio navigation strategies were significantly faster.
03Although Sonoice had the lowest mean trial duration, it did not receive significantly higher satisfaction scores than Sonar or Voice, and some participants found it overwhelming.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study included only 10 participants, which is too small for rigorous statistical subgroup analysis or generalisable conclusions. Participants received only 5 minutes of training per strategy, which may have disadvantaged the more complex Sonoice interface compared to the simpler Sonar or Voice methods. The trial-and-error approach was capped at 60 seconds, so the reported mean time may underestimate how long it actually takes users to locate an element without guidance. The study tested a specific device (Tactonom Reader) and interface, so results may not transfer to other tactile graphics or assistive technologies.
Declared interests
The research was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program. The authors collaborated with Inventivio GmbH, the company that manufactures the Tactonom Reader device used in the study.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret Sonoice as the superior interface for all users. Although it was numerically the fastest, the difference from Sonar and Voice was not statistically significant, and participants reported it felt overwhelming compared to the simpler methods.