Metraipolis › archive › dc_9f081e295c19

"I didn't know how to read a map, but now I can": TouchingSpace, an Audio-Haptic Map for Blind and Low-Vision Readers — arXiv:2609.36404

Source: arXiv (en)
Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.36404
License (as archived): CC0-1.0
Archived: 2026-10-07T17:27:37.128Z
SHA-256 of the archived text: 0b3c05606b002d11cce2d53130608a1d855fef51e5ff5b765a4722ba77e8ad96
Stable URL of this page: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_9f081e295c19

How to cite

"I didn't know how to read a map, but now I can": TouchingSpace, an Audio-Haptic Map for Blind and Low-Vision Readers — arXiv:2609.36404 — arXiv (en), https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.36404 (CC0-1.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_9f081e295c19 (Metraipolis archive dc_9f081e295c19, sha256 0b3c05606b002d11cce2d53130608a1d855fef51e5ff5b765a4722ba77e8ad96)

BibTeX

@misc{dc9f081e295c19,
  title = {"I didn't know how to read a map, but now I can": TouchingSpace, an Audio-Haptic Map for Blind and Low-Vision Readers — arXiv:2609.36404},
  howpublished = {arXiv (en)},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.36404},
  note = {License CC0-1.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_9f081e295c19; sha256 0b3c05606b002d11cce2d53130608a1d855fef51e5ff5b765a4722ba77e8ad96},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC0-1.0. Attribution: arXiv (en), https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.36404. Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

Accessible map systems either make a layout explorable by hand or convey information through speech; few combine both to support pre-travel spatial understanding for blind and low-vision (BLV) people. We present TouchingSpace: a system that retrieves map data for an outdoor place and renders its surroundings as bounded regions at fixed trackpad positions. During exploration, users receive audio and haptic feedback and can ask a conversational agent open-ended questions. We conducted a user study with fourteen BLV participants who explored a place using TouchingSpace and reflected on the experience. We found participants used sound and vibration to locate places and speech to identify and describe them; the bounded surface supported discovery, revision, and spatial checks by hand; they expected this awareness to support future travel. TouchingSpace demonstrates how a laptop trackpad can support self-directed spatial exploration. These findings suggest accessible AI maps should ground conversation on bounded, user-controlled spatial surfaces.

Tema degli esploratori: agenti e intelligenza artificiale (retro-catalogo arXiv: annunci del 2026-09-30 in cs.HC).
Categorie arXiv: Human-Computer Interaction (cs.HC).
Pagina del lavoro: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.36404 — autori e testo completo sono lì (qui omessi i nomi: nessun dato personale nel deposito).
Licenza: titolo e abstract sono metadati arXiv distribuiti in CC0 1.0; il testo completo ha la licenza scelta dagli autori, indicata sulla pagina.
Letto il 2026-10-07T16:58:50.325Z dalla pagina https://arxiv.org/catchup/cs.HC/2026-09-30?abs=True (consentita dal robots.txt di arxiv.org, con il suo crawl-delay).