The Works

Cutting-Edge Maps Show the Way With Sound and Touch

Better than GPS.

Map model at Perkins School for the Blind (Credit: Touch Graphics)

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Whether you want to see census data broken down by zip code or learn everything there is to know about Nutella, there’s a map for that. But though anything you could ever possibly want to see (and then some) seems to have found its way into map form, Steve Landau works on the truly innovative edge of cartography. He designs maps for people who can’t see.

Landau is the research director for Touch Graphics, which uses “multi-sensory display techniques” like physical sensation and sound to assist the visually impaired. In partnership with the University of Buffalo Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access (or the much easier to remember IDeA Center), Touch Graphics makes maps that orient users with a host of non-traditional — but surprisingly intuitive — strategies.

“We want to create a direct and visceral experience,” Landau says, explaining that the maps are intentionally easy to use, based on research probing the nuances of a topic those with sight often take for granted: how to get around.

Take a recently unveiled 3D model at Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts, showing a mini version of the campus, complete with buildings, lakes and streets. Students and visitors use their hands to navigate its touch-sensitive surface (covered in conductive paint), while a voice announces each building’s name and gives directions. Overhead projectors shine bright, contrasting colors onto the model’s surface for those who might be sight-impaired but not fully blind. As users touch the map, bells chime in a bell tower and a fountain makes gurgling sounds.

Map model at Perkins School for the Blind (Credit: Touch Graphics)

Another project in the works will eventually be installed at Philadelphia’s Overbrook School for the Blind. The large “tablet,” as Landau calls it, will position a lit background against an opaque model campus. Users will still be able to touch buildings, but routes will light up with contact, creating an even sharper contrast for those with limited sight.

Both maps are laid out flat instead of mounted on a wall, which Landau explains “makes for a stronger cognitive correlation than a vertical map.”

Such correlations are important because users can’t pick up the maps and carry them around, so routes need to stick. Heamchand Subryan, a programmer and analyst with the IDeA Center, says that the maps are meant to give new students and visitors a “broader view of the campus.”

Many new students will already have had some kind of guided tour by the time they come to the models, he explains.

“They’re very step by step,” he says. “Users are touching them and getting the audio content. They’re getting the names of the buildings and a series of very linear directions that point out specific landmarks that might already be familiar to them.”

The whole experience creates a second layer of spatial understanding, much like navigating a street on your own and then reinforcing the experience by looking at Google Earth.

With this idea of a “broader view” in mind, it’s tempting to wonder how big the maps could go. Could they display an entire neighborhood? A city?

But according to Landau, larger maps become trickier precisely because of how they convey information. Sight-impaired users need to retain the information after walking away, as though receiving verbal directions. So a model like the one at Perkins School, which displays around 80 acres with 20 to 30 buildings, is already a challenge.

“Residential students will memorize it, but as a visitor that’s quite a large environment to navigate,” he says. “You probably wouldn’t try to give walking directions for that much space.”

Subryan agrees that limiting scale is helpful.

“Especially in a newer environment, you need specific information, but it cannot be 10 minutes worth of content,” he says. New students might remember 95 percent of the information, but if only 5 percent is lost, it could translate into “a missed turn with no way to reroute.”

According to Landau, the maps’ smaller size — ideal for school campuses — also fill a market niche. It’s what he calls the “‘last mile’ problem for blind pedestrians.” GPS, while extremely helpful for navigating city streets, becomes useless once a sight-impaired person reaches their destination — and then needs further directions through a campus or grocery store.

“GPS can get you to the door of Kmart but not the milk aisle,” he adds.

In this way, the maps could actually be helpful for anyone needing to navigate a new space.

“The models are meant for the blind and vision impaired, but we wanted them to also benefit a larger group of people with different abilities,” Subryan says. “They were designed with accessibility in mind so a person in a wheelchair could use them, as well as sighted and non-sighted people.”

With their intuitive design and easy-to-remember layout, they’re ideal for that broader view understanding.

As Landau says, “they’re meant to be usable and fun for everyone.”

The Works is made possible with the support of the Surdna Foundation.

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Rachel Dovey is an award-winning freelance writer and former USC Annenberg fellow living at the northern tip of California’s Bay Area. She writes about infrastructure, water and climate change and has been published by Bust, Wired, Paste, SF Weekly, the East Bay Express and the North Bay Bohemian

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Tags: mappingpedestrian safety

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