Investigating Three-dimensional Directional Guidance with Nonvisual Feedback for Target Pointing Task

While directional guidance is essential for spatial navigation, little has been studied about providing nonvisual cues in 3D space for individuals who are blind or have limited visual acuity. To understand the effects of different nonvisual feedback for 3D directional guidance, we conducted a user study with 12 blind-folded participants. They were asked to search for a virtual target in a 3D space with a laser pointer as quickly as possible under 6 different feedback designs varying the feedback mode (beeping vs. haptic vs. beeping+haptic) and the presence of a stereo sound. Our findings show that beeping sound feedback with and without haptic feedback outperforms the mode where only haptic feedback is provided. We also found that stereo sound feedback generated from a target significantly improves both the task completion time and travel distance. Our work can help people who are blind or have limited visual acuity to understand the directional guidance in a 3D space.