Harnessing the web technology to enrich visually challenged users navigation

Navigating urban streets without sight is fraught with difficulty and is often dangerous. Visually challenged people rely on ancillary equipment such as a white cane to probe the immediate area in front of them as well as developing other pre-existing personal physiological senses such as tactile, auditory, and olfactory senses, to train themselves to walk along pavements. Conventional navigation systems based on geo-maps alone are of little use to a visually challenged pedestrian. Hence, there is a need to develop a navigation client-server system capable of providing information appropriate for a visually challenged pedestrian to use to navigate urban pavements. This paper describes a navigation system that includes an enriched information model and a technology to deliver such information in an easy-to-use, accessible fashion. The paper introduces the technical challenge to the creation of a digital database for the navigation server that stores appropriate data. A prototyped digital navigation model of Hoylake Town Centre, UK has been used to test and validate the proposed model. This paper describes the role and function, and outlines the architecture for the Web-based mobile computing location-based services navigation support systems.