LightGuide: Directing Visually Impaired People along a Path Using Light Cues

Precise and reliable directional feedback is crucial for electronic traveling aids that guide visually impaired people along safe paths. A large proportion of visually impaired people can determine light position using their light perception. This work presents LightGuide, a directional feedback solution that indicates a safe direction of travel via the position of a light within the user's visual field. We prototyped LightGuide using an LED strip attached to the brim of a cap, and conducted three user studies to explore the effectiveness of LightGuide compared to HapticBag, a state-of-the-art baseline solution that indicates directions through on-shoulder vibrations. Results showed that, with LightGuide, participants turned to target directions in place more quickly and smoothly, and navigated along basic and complex paths more efficiently, smoothly, and accurately than HapticBag. Users' subjective feedback implied that LightGuide was easy to learn and intuitive to use. The potential limitations of using LightGuide in real environments are subsequently discussed.