User-Centered Design of Non-Visual Audio-Haptics

A virtual haptic-audio drawing program prototype designed for visuallyimpaired children has been gradually developed in a design-evaluation loop involvingusers in four stages. Three qualitative evaluations focused on recognizing drawnshapes and creating drawings have been conducted together with a reference group of5 visually impaired children. Additionally, one formal pilot test involving 11 adultsighted users investigated the use of a combination of haptic and sound fieldfeedback. In the latter test the relief type (positive and negative) was also varied.Results indicate a subjective preference as well as a shorter examination time fornegative relief over positive relief for the interpretation of simple shapes such as 2Dgeometrical figures. The presence of the position sound field with a pitch and stereopanning analogy was not shown to affect task completion times.