1. http://talking-points.org A Mobile Context-based Information System for Urban Orientation of Sighted and Visually-Impaired Users presented by Michelle Escobar University of Michigan School of Information http://talking-points.org/2008/09/23/addw-conference

2. http://talking-points.org Photo © OliverN5 (flickr.com) ‏ New! Show Tonight! Special Offer! Insider Tip! Interesting Building! Come In! Lots of Visual, Serendipitous Information in Urban Environments

3. http://talking-points.org For Visually-Impaired people it looks different

4. http://talking-points.org Our Answer: Talking-Points location

5. http://talking-points.org Talking-Points System

6. http://talking-points.org Design Objectives Following a user centered design process Making the device unobtrusive in terms of form factor and user interaction Leveraging community-generated location information

7. http://talking-points.org Follow user-centered design processes Early focus on the user Active user participation throughout the project Early prototyping Continuous iteration of design solutions Multidisciplinary design team

8. http://talking-points.org Creating scenarios

9. http://talking-points.org Simulating the system WOz (Wizard of Oz) study: Human plays role of system interpreting user inputs and issuing appropriate response according to predefined rules modeling the intended system behavior

10. http://talking-points.org Other Influences Observational interviews Focus group User testing

11. http://talking-points.org Open source software Open source software encourages personalization to meet user’s needs Java CMU Sphinx library FreeTTS

12. http://talking-points.org Adoption of an unobtrusive device Assistive technology devices tend to have a high abandon rate Devices that are inconspicuous do not force “disabled” status on individuals

13. http://talking-points.org Hardware Components OQO –Bluetooth – Headphone – EVDO/GPRS Internet Connectivity – Small – Long-lasting Battery Headset –Bluetooth – Long-lasting Battery Bluetooth beacon –Durable – Unobtrusive – Unique MAC address

14. http://talking-points.org Community-generated location information Talking-Points website Ownership of tags Database accrued from community & other sites

15. http://talking-points.org Future Work Limitations of Bluetooth as a location-tagging technology Lack of orientation information impedes usability Textually-submitted content may not be suitable for speech-based delivery

16. http://talking-points.org Questions?

17. http://talking-points.org Contact Information Talking-Points talkingpoints@umich.edu http://talking-points.org Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/ talkingpoints-2/ Michelle Escobar escobarm@umich.edu www.umich.edu/~escobarm