[Trainer-Talk] Helping Blind students with better O&M

[Jim McCarthy]

Debee,
I did not attend this year but have for the last 3 years before this one.
There are things about that hotel I did not realize that came from your
note. I agree with Chip that you should share with the organizers as there
is perspective about which they may not have considered. As for indoor
navigation, there have been bunches of sessions about that topic each year I
attended and so far, I'd say that there is not an approach ready to be put
out in the stream, though perhaps it gets closer over time. Thanks for your
thoughts though.
Jim 

-----Original Message-----
From: Trainer-Talk [mailto:trainer-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
Chip Johnson via Trainer-Talk
Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2017 11:13 AM
To: List for teachers and trainers of adaptive technology
Cc: Chip Johnson
Subject: Re: [Trainer-Talk] Helping Blind students with better O&M

Hi Deborah,
Excellent article. I think you should send this (or maybe a portion of it)
to the CSUN organizers. I attended as well and found the guides helpful but
would have liked more information on the map as well. I like to orient
myself by cardinal directions and it would have been nice to know how the
map was layed out. There was lots of discussion this year about indoor
navigation and it will be interesting to see what comes of it. Even so, it's
important for each of us to find a way to orient ourselves in a new
environment since an O&M instructor isn't usually available.

-----Original Message-----
From: Trainer-Talk [mailto:trainer-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
Deborah Armstrong via Trainer-Talk
Sent: Monday, March 6, 2017 4:03 PM
To: Trainer-Talk at nfbnet.org
Cc: Deborah Armstrong <armstrongdeborah at fhda.edu>
Subject: [Trainer-Talk] Helping Blind students with better O&M

*** Typed this up while waiting for my return flight from CSUN ... feel free
to share. ***

I recently returned from an access technology conference where multitudes of
blind and visually impaired attended. The organizers tried to help us in
three different ways. They provided brief sighted guide tours to the exhibit
hall. They created tactile maps of the entire venue. And they enlisted a
local O&M specialist to give us a one-hour orientation to the place.

Despite their efforts, most of us found ourselves wandering around lost,
repeatedly asking sighted folks for assistance. I think the conference
organizers' efforts could have been more effective if they'd thought more
about what we blind people need to get oriented to an unfamiliar area. The
purpose of this long rant -- 'er post -- is to do just that.

Sighted guides

A guide can move you from point A to point B, and unless you actively
participate, you are like a tourist on a cruise ship, crossing the endless
ocean. When being guided, the world is a one-dimensional space; there's
simply a destination and one often feels teleported there. When I take a
guide's arm, I try to remember to ask what we are passing, what is behind us
and ahead plus request he point out as many landmarks as possible. But
sometimes, frustrated about how lost I feel,  I gripe instead about the
hotel's confusing layout, or try to forget my disoriented sorrows by
chatting with the guide about his job, his family and what is happening at
the conference. Making conversation is enjoyable, but adds little to one's
orientation ability.

So the helper too should think about what the person he's assisting needs to
know. "We are passing the escalators" is helpful;  "We are passing a Down
only escalator on our left" is even more helpful, because it alerts me to
the important fact that there is no escalator going up next to it. "This
hallway is shaped like an oval and if we travel far enough we will curve
back to the beginning" helps me understand why a room is sometimes on my
left and sometimes on my right. "You can't reliably turn any known direction
when you exit this elevator because there are a bank of six elevators here,
two sets of three facing each other and the one you take will be random".
How useful it would have been had I gotten that information at the start of
the conference instead of happening upon it myself when I decided to explore
the area in detail with my cane. It took me a while to realize the hotel had
two tenth floors, because they were located in separate towers, but only one
second and third floor, because a bridge between the two towers combined
those floors. In their goal to simply guide me to a destination, nobody
thought to clarify this confusing detail until I thought to ask.

Tactile Maps

Blind people vary in their ability to utilize tactile maps, but much of this
skill I believe is dependent on motivation. A formerly sighted friend
confidently assured me that the tactile maps we received were "useless". A
congenitally blind friend found them very helpful. Though, typically people
who have seen before find using maps more natural, this isn't always the
case. I fell somewhere in between: the map was confusing but not useless.

And here's where tactile maps fall short. A map needs to go through some
sort of quality assurance; all the confusing parts need to be analyzed for
why they are unclear.  This one was not accompanied by any sort of
description. I would have fared better with a recorded or text described
guided tour to the map. "At the top left is North and that's the entrance
with the revolving door" and "Near the bottom right is a little tactile X
showing where the emergency stairs are located".

The maps were also divided, one for the exhibit hall, one for the lobby, one
for the second floor and one for the third. It began to feel a bit like
looking at maps of Europe, Africa and Australia without access to a globe.

There were also multiple symbols on the map that did not appear in an
accompanying key. A series of closely parallel lines represented corridors,
which was immediately evident to a sighted friend but not to me. The same
friend, along with me could not figure out what the rougher textured areas
or a few of the squiggly lines signified. The key was a confusing mixture of
tactile symbols and Braille two-letter combinations , and some symbols were
missing.  I think they were trying to fit the entire key on one facing page,
but it would have been far better to simply use more paper.

O&M Specialists

Here's where I felt like the expert was simply herding cats. I've been
oriented by a variety of specialists to a variety of situations, and I think
the typical approach is not as effective as it could be. A group is
shepherded around, while the specialists notes what's in the immediate
vicinity. When the tour is over, I know what is there, but not where
everything is at.

A good orientation , in my opinion will start with the general and move to
the specific. Take, for example, the building where I work. I would describe
it as having two stories, with the second story covering only half the
building's area. The building has two entrances, one on the west end facing
the parking lot, and the other on the east end facing the cafeteria's back.
It has two additional exits on the north and south end, and those doors
don't open for entry. The single flight of stairs and corresponding elevator
are located together near the center of the building in a large, open space
with staff desks and customer service windows in a rough rectangle around
that space. There are two long hallways leading north and south
respectively, whose openings are slightly off from each other. The north
Hallway's entrance is closer to the parking lot side; the south hallways'
entrance is closer to the cafeteria side. Each hallway terminates in the
aforementioned exit.

In this general description the O&M teacher has the chance to assign
meaningful and nonambiguous names to each section of the area being
described. I have rarely encountered an O&M person who has thought about
giving a meaningful name to each area, simply picking something vague on the
fly like "your central road" or "the path by the science center".

In our orientation to the hotel, the specialist used words like "front" and
"back" "left" and right" "lobby area" and "elevator area" even though the
hotel had about twenty entrances, one lobby spanning the entire floor, two
separate towers, and multiple elevators for ascending each. Some of the
ambiguity could have been reduced if she'd thought ahead about specific
names to assign to each area and also if she'd insisted everyone face her
while she talked. Though I prefer cardinal directions, many others wanted
the more familiar Left, right, straight ahead and behind you. Because we all
were facing different directions, her already vague instructions grew
increasingly more confusing as our tour proceeded. As you orient someone
it's paramount to ask yourself if you are being precise and unambiguous.

"Now over here to your right is an escalator" was a typical example. "On my
right is an escalator, can all of you turn and face it now" would have been
more instructive. "Directly in front of us now is an elevator lobby with
eight elevators. It is one of two such lobbies, the hotel has another at the
south end about 100 yards behind everyone facing me now." That would have
been more helpful than "the elevators are straight ahead."

She could have continued to explain it was easy to find because you could
hear the soft thump of a revolving door leading to the outside immediately
to the escalator's left. I discovered that audio clue on my own because
there was thank goodness only one revolving door.  She could have further
told us that there were no other revolving doors in the building but that
there were nineteen other entrances. She could have then pointed it out on
the tactile maps. In fact, before walking us all around the hotel, it would
have been wonderful if she'd guided us around the tactile map first. But she
didn't even know about the tactile map, nor did she have a printed map to
refer to. The level of preparation therefore you put in to orienting someone
will affect how well oriented they become.
Audio clues can be helpful but misleading if not well thought out. I was
told the elevator was near the bar and I could find it because of the bar
noise. The hotel had two bars, and a sort of expanded Starbucks, from which
a cacophony of crowd noise emanated. Finding a bar wasn't hard, figuring out
which one I found was. Our campus has numerous buildings with loud air
conditioning compressors, but these are not good audio clues in the winter,
nor in the summer if you are trying to distinguish one building from another
since all the air conditioning is running then. Yet I often hear an O&M
instructor using those air compressors as audio clues for new blind
students.

Another problem was that the specialist, when she did use names, used
different ones than were found in the conference literature, the tactile map
and the actual posted signs. The conference literature described one dog run
by the "kettner" entrance" and another by the "retail road". I asked many
people where the kettner entrance and the retail road were, and nobody knew.
No sign had those names; their names on the map were different, and the O&M
specialist didn't know either. I found a total of five different dog runs,
or rather my dog did, probably because he was not hampered by the confusing
directions or the inconsistent signage, but I never figured out which dog
run corresponded to the ones described in the conference literature. In fact
the dog runs were easier to locate than the human restrooms, probably
because dogs like finding them a whole lot!

More on ambiguity's failure

Synonyms are a great boon to a fluid writing style, but never helpful when
it comes to O&M. On the campus where I work we have a library whose sign
reads "Learning Center". If I created a map for here, I would never dream of
confusing people by labeling it "library", even though that of course is
what it is. I have explained when orienting someone whether they are blind
or sighted that the learning center building is where the library is
located. This clears up confusion while remaining consistent.

Because the specialist wanted to cover all areas in the conference center,
she walked us through each one. But at the end of the tour, I was even more
bewildered about how they all connected. Since we'd taken an escalator to
get to certain floors, I was unclear if an elevator would go there and if so
which one. Because the corridors ran in a curving ellipse, I was at first
confused which end I was on and got lost until I began to visualize the
shape in my mind. Because some corridors branched off from a main foyer, but
because we had entered them from different places, I had trouble visualizing
their layout as well.  Because we went down half a floor to explore one
area, back up half a floor to explore another, then up to a third floor and
back down to a second floor, we covered the full venue, but didn't take the
shortest route, hence it was unclear where everything was located in
relation to everything else. Because she started with the specific and never
moved back to a general description, I got a kinesthetic sense of distance
but few clues how to find something on my own.  Before one can make an area
familiar, they need a mental picture of where anything is located in
relation to everything else. They need a reliable list of clues and cues to
know where they are in that mental map as well.

While I am ranting about ineffectual O&M, let me point out a problem which
occurs especially for our less confident blind students. They are repeatedly
guided to the gym, a restroom, or classroom and eventually told usually in a
frustrated tone that they should know the way by now. being guided somewhere
isn't the same as knowing the way. The route to our public restroom is
crowded by long snaking lines that are held in check by ropes on posts,
which a cane doesn't always encounter and which a guide dog bypasses
altogether. Our building also has corridors crowded with stand-up plastic
sandwich board signs, information desks which stick out in to the middle of
the hall and students who sit on any available floor space with their study
books spread out. As a guide weaves in an out of this crowded zoo, the
inexperienced blind traveler can find the experience overwhelming and
disorienting. The first time he tries to find a restroom he gets tangled up
in a long line, gets helped around an information table and is now headed in
the wrong direction. The guide must take responsibility to point out the
obstacles and landmarks in a person's path and help them learn an area on
their own; simply guiding them multiple times will not sufficiently orient
most blind people.

Additionally, my mind at least tends to think in 90-degree angles. This
illusion is further strengthened by people who insist I have to go straight
ahead when in fact the path I need is northeast of me when I'm facing north.

And when paths are not as narrow as sidewalks they can be a challenge to
follow. Five asphalt paths lead out of the back of my work building and all
of them are as wide as six-lane streets. Sighted people might tell me to go
straight to reach the back of the cafeteria, but I know I must curve
slightly to the right, and the depth of that curve depends on which door
I've exited. If I were to literally walk perfectly straight, I'd encounter a
row of bushes and because they look like 90% of the landscaping on campus,
I'd not be sure if I were to go right or left to pass the shrubbery by. If I
start out in a straight line, but make a sharp right before encountering the
shrubbery, I can find myself on a path that parallels the cafeteria and a
building beyond it, but if I go straight too far, I'll miss that path and if
I don't turn right soon enough, I'm following a different path. If I keep
the building close to my right and make a sharp immediate right turn, I will
actually travel down a road leading to the street -- a road frequented by
loud delivery trucks. If I take another path away from my building, which
sighted people insist is also straight ahead, (but is actually Northwest), I
know I have to curve slightly to the left, to pass our technology center and
avoid the path to the cafeteria, and if I make a sharp left turn, I am in a
section of campus where a variety of other paths, all at DG45 angles
converge. When exiting my building, any slight deviation from the direction
I intend to take, such as when I have to circumnavigate an information booth
or giant temporary sign smack dab in the midst of the converging paths, will
throw me off-course. If a big UPS truck blocks the route, it can be a
challenge to get around it and back in line for the appropriate path.
Because I have a mental map of this campus, I can get back on track fairly
quickly, but this happened only because I work here and I made great efforts
to explore and deliberately check out every path in depth.

The mental fortitude required to repeatedly explore unfamiliar areas until
you've sufficiently mentally mapped it is not always available to me. It's a
very exhausting endeavor.  And, for less confident blind people, that mental
fortitude is never available. At this convention, I decided to tramp up and
down all the corridors and read all the Braille signs the night before my
sessions began. I was stopped repeatedly by well-meaning people who asked me
where I wanted to go and could they help me get there. I explained over and
over that I was simply getting oriented. I believe my intense exploring was
painful for them to watch, though interestingly, my sighted husband finds it
delightful to watch me explore an unfamiliar area. People mostly just want
to grab that poor lost blind person and get them there.

At any rate, I did manage to find every room and read every sign, but the
following day, it wasn't helpful, since knots of people congregating in the
corridors blocked the Braille signs anyway and navigating around the crowds
gave the corridors a different mental shape than when I'd explored alone the
night before.  It was after all, just easier to get someone to guide me
around at least in that space.

And our less confident blind students often come to the same conclusion
though they might attend classes here for several years.

In summary, I believe there are overlooked opportunities for our blind
students to be more independent on campus, but it requires a partnership
between blind learners and sighted helpers to build a mental map that is
robust enough to encompass missed or wrong turns.

--Debee

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