Table vs Map Study | Hannahagbaroji

Launching a Blind-Friendly Accessible Navigation Site

Blind and visually impaired (BVIs) are not privy to the wide array of COVID data displayed on many online platforms, maps, and statistics tables, keeping them out of the loop on the most recent changes and developments

In this study, we design and test an accessible navigation website by harnessing features blind and visually impaired (BVIs) desired

Mentored By

Bradon Biggs
brandon.biggs@ski.org

Problem

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Visual maps are usually PDFs which make the data inaccessible to users. The few maps with text alternatives fail to show the spatial relationships or geographic information of that COVID data

Visual maps have been significant during the COVID-19 crisis, as they have been used in multiple modalities, such as showing choropleth data of COVID-19 cases and displaying the nearest testing sites

Current COVID information trackers for non-visual users only present numeric information in a textual table and only show COVID cases down to the state level. They do not provide spatial data across maps, preventing non-visual users from having a geographic understanding of trends

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So we created an accessible website that could communicate statistical and visual data to BVIs

Methods: Design

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Audiom is the world’s first inclusive visual, Auditory, and tactile map viewer and editor

This system is able to display geographic, spatial, visual, and numerical data - all of which can be translated to BVIs through audio

Once turned on, the system is ready to use

Pressing "m" opens a menu that lists all the states on the map. Up and down buttons can be used to navigate the list. First-letter navigation also helps users to hop around to specific states. Pressing "enter" would close the menu and place the user back in the spatial map

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Pressing "t" would open a table where users move up, down, left, and right to access nominal data. Pitches are associated with values with smaller numbers having low pitches and larger numbers having high pitches

Embedded is also a visual map that is accessible to sighted users. Arrow keys would move the subject north, south, east, and west (1 meter per click). Users could change the layer of the map to view by the number of tests, cases, cases per one million, deaths, per million, and more

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Currently, there are no digital maps accessible to blind people, which is against the law. Sixteen million websites and 2 million apps have digital maps, and none of the 285 million blind people in the world have access to them. Audiom is the first tool to make all these maps accessible

Methods: Research

To assess the usability of Audiom, we compared the performance of 20 BVIs and 20 sighted individuals on a series of identical tasks. Tasks involved asking questions such as "How many COVID deaths were there in Newport Beach?" Or "What state is directly south of Dearborn?" Users' response time and response correctness were assessed

Usability was the main variable that will comprise efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction

Efficiency is the time to respond to the question
Effectiveness is the correct answer to the questions
Satisfaction is the combination of subjective ratings

Different analytical tests were performed on the data. For example, a single-tailed two-sample t-test will be used to compare audio map responses with the table, including subjective workload responses. The qualitative answers of participants’ thoughts on the study will be coded using thematic analysis

Results

We found that that:

- The confidence level of blind participants on general geographic knowledge was less than sighted participants

- The accuracy of responses to geographic questions was significantly higher using Audiom than with a table on a map with unknown geography with both blind and sighted participants

- The accuracy of responses when using a visual map was significantly higher with a visual map than with a table on an unknown geography with sighted participants

- There was no difference between geographic knowledge with blind individuals using an audio map and sighted participants using a visual map

- The task load index was significantly higher with a table than with either the visual or audio maps

- Blind participants preferred using a map over a table

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