Bus search: Development and evaluation of performance and usability of mobile application for blind or visually impaired

Abstract

This paper describes the design and development of a mobile application supporting independent travel in accessing public buses for people who are blind or visually impaired. The key objective is to develop solutions that are low cost, have an intuitive and easy to use interface. The Android architecture was used with speech recognition (SR) technology in order to assist blind or visually impaired users. With the help of A-GPS in phones and through Web Services using GPRS, Location Based Services can be implemented on android based on smart phones to provide value-added services: retrieving current traffic conditions, providing routing information, getting estimated wait time for users. The mobile application supports two languages, English and Thai as voice inputs using open-source CMU Sphinx for Thai and Google speech recognition API for English. Empirical analysis under various environments such as indoor, outdoor, and building surrounded and usability studies were performed to illustrate the efficacy of the application. The results of average of application response time are acceptable according to SOASTA's survey. Improved feedback was added based on usability study results.