Archi-TangiBlock: A Modular Block Based Tangible Media as a CAD Tool for Visually Impaired People

Tactile maps are crucial for orientation and mobility (O&M) training for visually impaired people (VIP) to gain spatial knowledge of their surroundings. However, existing tactile maps are limited in their ability to facilitate actively generating information, modifying, and sharing by VIP individuals, making it challenging for them and O&M specialists to create and customize maps independently. To address this issue, we propose Archi-TangiBlock (ATB), an accessible computer-aided design (CAD) tool for VIP. ATB comprises a modular block-based tangible user interface that modularizes architectural landmarks, a panel for plugging in block modules, and a computer interface. Visually impaired users can use ATB to create a 3D CAD model by constructing a space with the blocks, enabling active learning. We evaluated ATB with visually impaired participants, and our results demonstrate that ATB enables visually impaired users to easily build maps, achieving a remarkably low error rate of 1.2%, and to gain an understanding of the overall spatial layout at a rate twice as fast as compared to conventional tactile maps.