Developing Dynamic Audio Navigation UIs to Pinpoint Elements in Tactile Graphics

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1.      Please clearly justify the choice of your selected methods , especially their relevance for blind and visually impaired people (BVI) community.

2.      Please clearly define what do you understand by « dynamic » (thus « static ») data.

3.      Please clearly analyse to which BVI needs the Tactonom device is revelant and compare with other existing (published or on the market) solutions. ; why – in your opinion- the Tactonom is not still widely used by the targeted population despite of its availability in the market since several decades (and it is not a question of the price) ?

4.      Please clearly establish what and how dynamic 2D data are supported by the Tactonom.

Did you ever tested refreshable braille readers with dynamic data ?

5.      Please explain how do you measure the complexity of a tactile graphics ?

6.      Please provide the state of the art (SoA) of the existing audio-description approaches assisting tactile/haptic graphics.

In general,  it would be useful to consult papers from ICCHP (included ICCHP-AAATE 2022 you mention), CHI, … Conferences (after 2010), IEEE HAPTICS, IEEE ACCESS, IEEE EMBS … journals. You can also consult what is done already educational institution (across the world).

7.      Please clearly explain how do you link  your  rules of UI design for complex tactile presentations with those used in dedicated schools and dedicated research centres for the tactile presentations of the 2D data.

8.      Please clearly state what are scientific hypotheses underpinning your experiments.

9.      Please scientifically justify your audio-feedback choosen parameters ; are they coherent with neuro-cognitive data ? What are constants and variables of your experiments ?

1.   How you know where the target of BVI is located in the case of  complex tactile images (targeted by you ?) such your graphics 3-4 ?

1.   Please justify the content of your tests-graphics ; please clarify how the navigation software « knows » which tactile element(s) should be underpined  (in the case of simple and complex tactile graphics).

1.   Your « screening questionnaire » (§3.5) should be integrated in §3.1 under user profil.

1.   Please check the units of the figure 7 : distance from the finger initial position and target position is … 100cm , 200cm, …600 cm OR  1m, 2 m, … 6m … and the size of the Tactonom ?

1.   The « Discussion » should encompass scientific explication of the collected data  and observed behaviours during your experiments. Please re-write this section as some elements you mention should be placed in the section 4.

1.   How different degrees of visual incapacity impact the obtained results ?

1.   Please clearly state how the obtained results could be usefull for the design of any tactile reader (i.e., please generalise, if possible, the proposed improvement of the used system).

. Bibliography

      Please consulte more recent conferences (you missed the important papers in some proceedings you mention) and journal publications (some members of your project consortium are (co-)editors of these journals)) and analysed them (not only list them) in your text.

    Please provide all data when you reference an internet publication.

. Please re-read your paper with native English speaker from the domain.

Some sentences are not grammatically correct (as they are not sentences): e.g.

« For instance, by impacting the cognitive functions, the sense of touch, or the motor system ».

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your great insights and report on our manuscript.

The point-by-point response was uploaded as a PDF document.

Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper presents an study regarding three audio navigation user interfaces that dynamically guide the user's hand to a specific position using  audio feedback. Based on them a study was conducted on 13 blind  visual impared people. Paper is well written in good English. Here are my main comments to the paper:

  - the number of participants to the study is bt low. I would expect to be higher. Either try a larger sample, either discuss how the obtained results are significant given the low number of participants

- related work: I will sugest to do it bit more exhaustive and to add more on how current work differs from what exists

- comparison with related work of the results: it is done, but not sufficient. Please add also here more comparison.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments and report on our manuscript.

We uploaded our point-to-point response as a PDF document.

Best Regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an improved verssion as compared with the previous. However I am not satisfied with the answer to the first question, related to the small number of participants. It is not easy to get people, however sampling is sampling. At least an enlarged discussion regarding this should be put in the paper.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for the clarification and feedback.

Regarding the smaller number of participants, an enclosed discussion was added in section 3. 

Best Regards,

Gaspar Ramôa