[Michigan-Youth-Outreach] Improved Accessible Pedestrian Signals for Visually-Impaired Users

[Navdeep Bagga]

Hi,

My name is Navdeep and I am a master’s student at the University of
Michigan School of Information. I am writing a paper on improved accessible
pedestrian signals for blind and visually-impaired users. The current
implementation, the Accessible Pedestrian Signal or APS (
http://www.apsguide.org), is expensive and scarce across cities in the US.
I am proposing a solution which involves installing bluetooth beacons on
existing pedestrian signals (not just the APS) which can convey the status
of the signal to the user on their smartphone which is bluetooth enabled
and has the necessary app installed to listen to the bluetooth beacons. I
am assuming that users are comfortable using screen readers on their
smartphones.

I am writing to request people to answer the questions below or just have a
discussion with me on this topic:

   1. Do you have any frustrations with APS?
   2. What are your views about the desirability of the wireless status
   system using a smartphone?
   3. Do you have any concerns about the proposed solution?

Please reach out to me off list via email (navdeepb at umich.edu). Thank you!

Sincerely,
Navdeep Singh Bagga
navdeepb at umich.edu
School of Information | Class of 2018
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor