An extended usability and UX evaluation of a mobile application for the navigation of individuals with blindness and visual impairments indoors: An evaluation approach combined with training sessions

Abstract

Navigating indoor spaces is especially challenging for individuals with blindness and visual impairments. Although many solutions currently exist, the acceptance of most of them is extremely poor due to their technical limitations and the complete lack of taking into consideration factors, such as usability and the perceived experience among others, which influence adoption rates. To alleviate this problem, we created BlindMuseumTourer, a state-of-the-art indoor navigation smartphone application that tracks and navigates the user inside the spaces of a museum. At the same time, it provides services for narration and description of the exhibits. The proposed system consists of an Android application that leverages the sensors found on smartphones and utilizes a novel pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) mechanism that optionally takes input from the Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons specially mounted on the exhibits. This article presents the extended Usability and User Experience evaluation of BlindMuseumTourer and the findings carried out with 30 participants having varying degrees of blindness. Throughout this process, we received feedback for improving both the available functionality and the specialized user-centred training sessions in which blind users are first exposed to our application’s functionality. The methodology of this evaluation employs standardized questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, and the results indicate an overall positive attitude from the users. In the future, we intend to extend the number and type of indoor spaces supported by our application.