Guiding Support for 'Way-Finding' in Unknown Buildings: Design and Evaluation

摘要

We face the support to finding the way in an unknown building, such as hospital or city-hall for people with special needs (reduced vision, cognitive disabilities, physical disabilities), which forces not only to find the way, but to find the suitable one for specific capacities. Our goal is to enhance accessibility to public services and leisure in an autonomous and easier way. The system design uses building and personal context to find an adequate way to his/her destiny. Then it will guide the person through the way, monitoring the route followed, re-conducting when needed and giving the chance to change destination. This paper shows a brief description of the system and the two evaluation stages performed with their conclusions. A multidisciplinary team with engineers, gerontologists, psychologist and two special education schools are involved in specification, development and evaluation.