A Mobile Navigation System Based on Visual Cues for Pedestrians with Cognitive Disabilities

The authors present a prototype of a mobile navigation system designed for pedestrians with cognitive disabilities. The system first determines the shortest route from current location to a desired predefined destination from a set of candidate routes obtained from Bing Maps and Google Maps. Then the system extracts intermediate targets (decision points) from the route according to street crossings. The guidance to the next intermediate target is provided in the form of atomic textual and auditory instructions, together with visual cues extracted automatically from Google Street View. The experimental evaluation of the application is carried out via a field study with two subjects with Down syndrome in authentic urban setting. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the design of the system and the findings of the field study.