TacTalk: Talking tactile map for the visually impaired

A major constraint for the visually impaired is to navigate independently to unfamiliar places. One of the widely used assistive technologies is the tactile map that consists of Braille labeling and features annotation. The tactile map enables the visually impaired to understand the geographical information of a particular place. However, despite its wide usage, tactile map still lacks in its usability and availability especially in Malaysia. This paper aims to investigate the usability issues of tactile map, identify the requirements and proposed a conceptual prototype named TacTalk to overcome the usability issues of the existing tactile map. Interviews were conducted with the visually impaired at Saint Nicholas' Home for the Blind in Penang. The results shows lack of information, misinterpretation, complexity, and hard to remember the map as the four main usability issues. Hence the proposed solution is named TacTalk, a `talking tactile map' which consist of a tactile map with embedded buttons that will connect to TacTalk mobile application via Bluetooth to play the audio files once the button is pressed by the user.