Support Strategies for Remote Guides in Assisting People
with Visual Impairments for Effective Indoor Navigation
Rie Kamikubo
The University of Tokyorkamikub@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Naoya KatoThe University of Tokyo
nkato@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Ryo Yonetani
The University of Tokyo
yonetani@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Keita Higuchi
The University of Tokyokhiguchi@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Yoichi SatoThe University of Tokyoysato@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

ABSTRACTINTRODUCTION

People with visual impairments often require mobility assistance of sighted guides but they are not always available. Recent technological strides have opened up new directions forsighted guidance services, assigning guides from a network of
remote workers to provide real-time assistance via audio/videocommunication. However, little has been known regarding desirable support characteristics of remote guides or challenges
experienced in guide practices without the requisite expertise.
To recommend support strategies that contribute to facilitating
a successful platform for remote sighted guidance, this paper
presents a comparative study of the performance of trained
and untrained sighted guides who are recruited for a remotescenario in assisting people with visual impairments in indoor navigation. As an outcome of this research, we provide
a deeper understanding of design opportunities for HCI toscaffold requirements of remote guides, such that their collaborative efforts and environmental knowledge influence theuser experience. Based on our empirical insights, we suggest
to develop the expertise of remote guides through: a) preliminary guidance cooperation awareness b) guidelines for verbal
description methods, and c) approaches to compensate for thelack of environmental knowledge.

People with visual impairments can face significant challenges
that deprive their safe and independent mobility [39]. To compensate for the vision loss, they have to rely on mobility aids
which include the traditional white cane and guide dog [35, 41].
In recent years, navigation tools are becoming high-tech, suchas using collision avoidance systems [28, 43, 27] or providing
turn-by-turn directions [26, 33]. While assistive technology
suggests solutions to enhance visually impaired people’s mobility, there are various situations where technology fails toensure reliable and consistent support (e.g., crowded spaces,
indoors, construction areas) [41]. In such scenarios, having an
in-person guide is still arguably the most efficient method [16,17, 41] but the guide may not always be available.

Author Keywords

Remote Assistance, Visual Impairment, Indoor Navigation,
Collaboration
CCS Concepts•Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing; Accessibility; •Socialand professional topics → People with disabilities;

To appear in CHI 2020

To facilitate access to human-powered support, a number ofcommercially-available applications provide sighted guidanceof remote workers [7, 21, 22, 23]. Be My Eyes is a wellrecognized example that establishes a video connection to pairvisually impaired users with crowdsourced volunteers who
serve as conversational question-answering assistants [22].
The crowd volunteers interpret the video feed from the users’smartphone camera and deliver visual information in nearlyreal time. Despite discussing the benefits of the service, Avila
et al. have reported individual variability of the remote workers
that inhibits quality assurance [1]. As one of the few pioneers,a related collaborative platform called Aira has introduced
human agents who are trained in the terminology and etiquetteof communication [29].
Our eventual goal is to make such remote guidance cooperation a promising platform for people with visual impairments,
especially to match them with effective remote workers for themobility support. To this goal, we have noticed that there is anabsence of known strategies to promote effective remote guidepractices. Co-located sighted guide techniques have been
widely acknowledged to offer proper preparation to act as effective guides for navigation assistance [18, 31]. Inevitably,
we are facing a lack of knowledge about the desirable ways of
support and suggestions to improve the remote guide practices,which may have both consistencies and inconsistencies withexisting strategies for in-person guides.

new promising direction. The question remains as to whether
and how the strategies for traditional sighted guidance can beapplied to enable more people to be effective remote guides.
Sighted Guidance for Blind or Low Vision People

Figure 1. Visually impaired pedestrian is travelling a planned route
while receiving mobility assistance from a remote guide through a videoconferencing system, such as found in user-agent interaction in Aira [29].
We conducted an analysis of 16 remote guide performances in giving verbal instructions and extracted the remote guide characteristics that werereviewed for the overall user experience.

In this work, we sought to better understand the requirementsof effective remote guides and contribute to the development of
support strategies for the guides to adopt in providing remotemobility assistance. As illustrated in Figure 1, we conducted astudy to assess the performance of 16 sighted participants asremote guides in collaborative navigation tasks. To investigate
how remote guides should give support to visually impaired
users in this study context, we observed communication andassistance behaviors of the guides with the following types ofrequirements: trained and untrained for traditional sighted
guidance, each expected to influence the experience of guided
participants differently. In addition to the analysis of the verbal interaction during the task, we exploited the performanceassessment by the guided participants and the self-assessmentof the guides’ performance to derive desirable support characteristics and challenges of providing remote guidance.
To our knowledge, we present the first efforts to provide a setof suggestions that can improve the performance and effectiveness of remote guides who provide real-time assistance topeople with visual impairments in indoor navigation. Basedon the analysis of performances of trained and untrained participants in sighted guidance, we identified that trained guides
demonstrated desirable verbal behaviors that untrained guides
were lacking, as in-person guide techniques prioritize methods
to inform details of the environment efficiently. Nevertheless, trained guides were not always well matched for thecurrent video-based navigation platform due to their lack ofenvironmental familiarity and awareness for remote guidancecooperation. To discuss social and technical recommendations
to facilitate the design of remote mobility assistance, this paper concludes with the following implications: a) preliminary
guidance cooperation awareness b) guidelines for verbal description methods, and c) design approaches to address thelimitations of video-mediated collaboration associated withenvironmental unfamiliarity of the guides.
RELATED WORK

Our work is significantly informed by prior research studying
collaborative navigation and making efforts towards detailingsuggestions for sighted people to better interact with and assist
those with visual impairments. Also, several prior studies
have examined the feasibility of remote sighted guidance as a

Researchers have studied the experiences of people with visual impairments during navigation and found that they often
rely on sighted guides, especially when navigating unfamiliar indoor spaces [40, 41]. In such collaborative navigation
scenarios, a visually impaired person holds the elbow/armof a sighted person and walks under the assumption that thesighted person will know the way around and avoid any obstacles in the way. Importantly, sighted guides can describe theenvironment and provide visual information as they negotiate
their travel situations together. While location-aware pedestrian navigation systems (e.g., [17], [27], [33]) have expanded
opportunities to receive navigation and wayfinding information, navigation environments are ever changing [4]. There areconstruction sites, bus stops changing locations, or businesses
closing or being replaced, making the sighted guidance themost reliable method for people with visual impairments toensure their ability to travel [41].
Despite the advantages of having sighted guides, several works
have observed unreliable guidance by sighted people due totheir lack of knowledge about how visually impaired people
navigate or verbal descriptions methods to give environmental
cues [15, 36, 37, 40]. Navigators have proclaimed their experiences of receiving irrelevant information, ambiguous phrases
like “there”, or inaccurate measurement estimations [36, 40].
Therefore, they have reported their preferences towards trainedsighted guides to receive more efficient navigation help [2, 9].
Practice of Trained Sighted Guides

Trained sighted guides are aware of specific techniques to convey visual information and navigation instructions using verbal
and physical cues [18, 31]. Guides, especially those who provide services as Orientation&Mobility (O&M) specialists, arewell experienced with describing environmental features thatenable visually impaired people to learn spatial relationshipsof their surroundings [35, 38]. Also, they inform navigation
cues with regards to individual mobility needs and strategies,
such as guiding blind pedestrians using a cane to benefit fromwalls or areas with boundaries, which can be misunderstood as
obstacles by those without blindness awareness [41]. Trained
guides also make sure that their walking pace and stance areappropriate for the companion’s travel behaviors [13, 31].
To train professional guides, many efforts have been devoted
to the development of verbal description methods and courtesy
expressions to avoid misunderstandings and confusion [10, 32,
34, 42]. For example, as a tip to describe the geometric spacein the immediate vicinity, people with visual impairments may
take in information easier when objects are identified according to a clock orientation (e.g., “There is a table at 2 o’clock
position”) [13, 32]. It is also important to avoid language that
centers around visual cues when giving navigation instructions(e.g., Instead of “Go to your right when you reach the officesupply room”, “Walk forward to the end of this aisle and makea full right” is strongly preferred) [2, 13].

Emphasis on Remote Sighted Guidance

The drawbacks of sighted guidance are that its professional
service may not always be accessible and may not be ideal
for promoting independence. To remove these barriers, pervasive mobile technologies, such as smartphones and wearable
devices, have now opened up opportunities for visually impaired users to access human-powered support. Be My Eyes
[22], VizWiz [7], TapTapSee [20], and BeSpecular [23] havedemonstrated the idea of crowd workers responding to photos
or videos captured by the users’ camera so that they can flexibly query for real-time assistance in a variety of situations.
There is also a body of research devoted to investigating thefeasibility of having remote assistants to enhance the mobility
experience of visually impaired pedestrians [5, 6, 12, 14, 30].
To inspire suitable matching criteria in sighted and visually
impaired collaboration, the remote service delivery of the Aira
platform has showcased qualified “agents” who are considered
trained in the user-friendly terminology and communication
courtesy [29]. Along with the commercial development, onecase study has ascertained the advantage to seek information
about features of the environment from O&M specialists via
Facetime [19]. Other related feasibility studies have also assigned individuals who are trained in O&M concepts as remote
operators, leveraging their recognized qualifications in the design and adoption of remote mobility assistance [6, 14, 24].
Despite the availability of the remote mobility assistance, wehave not adopted known evaluations of remote guide performances to identify desirable communication/assistance approaches. As discussed in prior work [4], trained sighted
guides or O&M specialists are qualified, particularly given
their preliminary awareness of what information is useful for
people navigating with visual impairments. However, to pave
the way for a successful remote guidance, it is important tochallenge the taken-for-granted assumptions about qualifications that have been based on techniques to mediate co-locatedinteractions with visually impaired people [9, 18, 31, 34].
USER STUDY

We performed a study to examine collaborative navigation
tasks involving remote guides and pedestrians with visual impairments. Our goal of this study was to learn about desirable
communication/assistance strategies and discover a set of suggestions for those performing remote mobility assistance. We
assessed the performance of trained sighted guides and untrained guides and performed a comparative review to exhibit:
1) desirable characteristics of support based on how visually
impaired participants perceived and reacted to the performanceof remote guides 2) desirable expertise factors based on theanalysis of interviews with trained sighted guides reporting
their needs and challenges in providing remote guidance.
Participants

After a pilot study, 24 participants (16 sighted and 8 visually
impaired) were recruited for the study from the local mailinglists and word of mouth. We asked the participants with visual
impairments to navigate unfamiliar planned routes in an officebuilding located on a school campus and use a video conference system to receive remote help from trained and untrained

Table 1. Pedestrians with visual impairments (PVI) including their age,gender, vision, travel behaviors (use of sighted guide, white cane).

ID

Age/Gender

Impairment

Guide Use (Travel Aids)

P1
P2
P3

58/F
46/F
54/F

Glaucoma
RP
RP

P4

35/M

Blind

P5

50/M

Glaucoma

P6

46/M

RP

P7

20/M

RP

P8

67/F

RP

Often (Travel with a regular cane)
Often (Prefer not to use white cane)
Sometimes (Always use white cane;
Travel alone in everyday locations)
Sometimes (Always use white cane;
Travel alone in everyday locations)
No (Prefer not to use cane; Travelalone & search online for maps anddirections)
No (Always use white cane; Travelalone in everyday locations, )No (No cane; Travel alone with smartphone for maps and directions)
Often (Prefer not to use white cane)sighted guides. The participants were compensated for theirtime and effort to take part in our study.
Pedestrians Navigating with Visual Impairments (PVI)
Table 1 shows a list of participant demographics, which ranged
from blind to severe to mild forms of low vision. We did not
categorize participants by specific visual impairments considering the nature of user variability in real-world applications
such as [22, 29]. Types of visual impairment experienced by
the participants included advanced glaucoma, retinitis pigmentosa (RP), and complete blindness. They acquired their vision
impairments adventitiously, and they all had sufficient hearing
abilities. The blind subject (P4) lacked any visual information
for navigation. Low vision subjects were able to obtain somevisual cues, such as with remaining visual fields (P5, P7) orlight perception (P3, P6, P8), but none had sufficient acuity
to read building signage. P3, P4, and P6 use a white cane
on a regular basis and are experienced to travel alone in anenvironment where they have received O&M training. P1, P2,
P8, also with severe forms of vision loss, own a white cane but
use it only when they cannot rely on sighted guide services. P5
and P7 access maps and directions from their personal devices
to navigate independently.
Remote Guides

Each sighted participant was given the role to remotely guidethe paired PVI via live video footage of the captured environment, supported by a physical map of the travel paths (Shownin Figure 2). Though all participants had no prior training
or experiences in remote sighted guidance, there were two
key expertise factors influencing the performance of remotemobility assistance:
Trained Guides (TG). Table 2 shows a list of 8 sighted guidespecialists (four females) who are trained guides belonging
to either public disability services office or private assistance services to help customers with disabilities. Theirmain job is to escort people, including those with visual
impairments, to their desired destination. We focused on arandom assignment of participants to be in pairs and tried tomatch individuals who had not met and/or traveled together.
There were yet 3 pairs with relational factors due to limited
local guidance offices, as many users know the same guides

Table 2. Trained sighted guides: participant information including theirage, gender, Guide Experience, and relationship with PVI.

ID

Age/Gender

Guide Experience

Know PVI Partner

TG1
TG2
TG3
TG4
TG5
TG6
TG7
TG8

43/M
53/F
66/M
55/M
54/M
43/F
46/F
66/F

2 years
7 years
3 years
2 years
6 years
1 year.5 year
4 years

Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No
No
No
No

and services. In this paper, the pairs are noted with the sameIDs (e.g., TG5 and P5 worked in a pair). Participants had
not visited the test environment prior to the study.
Untrained Guides (UG). We recruited 8 other sighted participants on-site who were not previously trained for sighted
guidance. Our recruitment of UG participants followed theconditions that would reduce the effects of gender, educational, or age/social-class differences to mainly control
variability in verbal interaction approaches and map reading
skills. As a result, the participants, aged between 23 to 32,
were male graduate students or staff randomly selected fromthe information science department of the institute that the
study took place. These conditions also led to member homogeneity in tech-savviness and environmental familiarity.
Environment

The study took place inside a 7-story building on the university’s campus where the journey of data collection was notcontrolled. PVI traversed the planned routes that involved
other pedestrians like graduate students or staff. The plannedroutes that spanned in the area of 1080m2 consisted of 2m wide
corridors, where pedestrians would find doors and panels on
the walls. The session involved reaching multiple landmarks
defined preliminarily by the researchers, which are kitchen andcopier rooms with an open entryway on a single floor. Thereare 2 vending machines and a counter-top sink in the kitchenroom, and the copier room had 1 large table with chairs andmultiple copiers and scanners located around the table. Everypair went through at least two straight hallways (41.2 m long),
three decision points (intersections with an area of 3.6m2 ),and 3 confidence points (different copier rooms as origin anddestination, making a stop at the kitchen room in between).
Figure 2b shows a floor map of the building, with added labelsof the confidence points.
Apparatus

In order to allow video communication between PVI and remote guides, we used a video conferencing service, Whereby1 .
Similar to the prior evaluation studies of remote navigation
systems [16, 5], PVI received a special belt-wear to position
the smartphone camera on their chest and point it onwards inthe direction of the environment (Shown in Figure 1). They
1 https://whereby.com/

Figure 2. Sighted participants given the captured view of the pedestrian’s environment and the floor map with landmark annotations (C:Copier room, K: Kitchen room), and starting positions and directions of
the pedestrian.

were able to detach the camera from the belt when needed2 .
The captured video was sent over the mobile data network to
the browser-based interface on the remote guide’s computer
screen. The user wore a single-ear headset to hear the voiceof the remote guide. We provided a floor plan to the remote
guides, considering a real-world assistance scenario that such
map information is a common method for sighted guides torely on when navigating an unfamiliar indoor space. Also, forthe remote guides in existing cost-friendly video link systems
that have not incorporated the user localization inputs [19, 22],the floor plan is the only available reference to capture thebuilding layout from the user’s camera.
Procedure

We obtained informed consent (approved by the university’sIRB) from all participants. Three participants were invited foreach experimental session (1 PVI as a user, TG and UG as
remote guides). They first received an introduction about our
research and its goals, and the task procedure was explained tothem individually for their assigned role. We walked throughhow the video communication interface works for remote
guides and warned about possible technical difficulties suchas poor image quality or connection. We stressed that the
remote guides should provide verbal feedback in a way thatthey think would be necessary to guide the user and focus onsafety as a primary concern throughout the task. PVI werebriefed about 2 collaborative navigation tasks, either connectedwith TG or UG, but did not receive any information about thepaired remote guide’s background and experience unless they
were from the acquainted pairs with TG. To ensure the PVI’s
safety during the navigation tasks, we referred that one of theresearchers would always be nearby as observers and intervene
when necessary.
For each collaborative navigation task, the pairs were givena scenario for a journey (approx. 100m long) that started by
2 Our pilot study explored other ways to mount cameras, such as using
a lanyard to hung from the neck [3], having a wearable smart glasses
such as in Aira, or controlling the phone in hand [22]. We did notproceed with these setups because they often caused significant blurin videos, accidental drop of the camera, or an accidental terminationof the application.

first going to the kitchen room and then ended by moving to
the assigned copier room. They were instructed to move to thenext landmark only after they confirmed that they had arrived
at the first one. By enabling remote connection throughout
the journey, instead of strictly traversing for wayfinding, we
gave them freedom to explore the landmark area for naturalcommunication/interaction behaviors. Followed by a different
remote guide for the next task, PVI were assigned a similar
journey on a different floor and with slightly different interiorsettings and kitchen/mailbox rooms to pass. The order of theremote guide conditions (TG or UG) was counterbalanced.
After completing the experimental session involving two journeys, PVI were asked a set of questions to share their ratingsand perspectives on the user experience with different remote
guides. In addition to the reported scores, PVI described how
the navigation instructions received were effective or ineffective. They also provided their impressions of remote mobility
assistance including its limitations and potential applications.
They were asked to give information about their daily travel
scenarios and visual conditions as well. This semi-structured
interview session lasted approximately 30 minutes.
All sighted participants completed a questionnaire to reporttheir self-reviews of the performance. We held an additionalsemi-structured interview session with TG to learn about how
giving instructions and providing assistance via remote connection were different compared to in-person co-navigation,
including their perceived challenges to be effective remote
guides. Specifically, they were asked to indicate navigation
scenarios that they felt they provided guidance effectively orwith difficulties. The session lasted about 20 to 30 minutes.
Data Collection and Analysis
Effectiveness Ratings

PVI reported subjective scores for the perceived effectivenessof assistance from TG and UG. The rating was on a scale from
1 to 7, where 7 received the highest effectiveness score. We
conducted a paired Wilcoxon signed-rank test to determine
whether the differences between the two conditions would besignificant.
Interviews and Questionnaires

Notes were thoroughly taken during the interviews, and audio was recorded to look over for any missing content fromthe notes. Raw qualitative data of questionnaire results andinterview notes were separated into text segments containing
single ideas or incidents.
Interview responses of PVI were first open coded by the primary researcher, which identified the features of the remote
guide’s performance reflecting the concerns and perspectivesof PVI. Three members of the research team then reviewed
these initial codes, in which further groupings were done toemerge certain characteristics of support by TG and UG and
how PVI found them effective or ineffective. Such characteristics were later linked with quantitative measures of verbal
behaviors of TG and UG (analysis explained in the following
section). Through further discussion of the meaning of PVI
responses, the pros and cons of the ways of support gradually
illuminated the same themes seen in TG interviews regarding

the need to develop the expertise of remote guides to facilitate
desirable remote mobility guidance cooperation.
Questionnaire responses of sighted participants (TG and UG)
also followed the same analytic process as above, which started
by identifying the initial codes reflecting the concerns andperceived effectiveness of their own performance. Also given
the interview topics of TG - sighted guidance techniques andchallenges in current remote mobility assistance, the researchteam compared and discussed the codes which were refined
into main analytic points of the expertise factors to be effective
remote guides.
Annotation of Verbal Behaviors of Remote Guides

To assess the characteristics of navigation instructions derived
from the above qualitative data, we observed the performanceof navigation tasks based on measuring what kind of spoken
language and instructions were used by TG and UG. Using thescreen recordings of the video conferencing interface which
included audio of pedestrians and assistants, we counted eachtime a participant mentioned a word/phrase relating to theemerged properties of navigation instructions in remote interaction. We followed the previous analysis techniques for the
subjective categorization of different types of information forroute navigation [8, 9].
Specifically, two members of the research team individually
analyzed the video recordings based on the pre-determined
rules to code the categories of expressions used for navigation instructions: directional (e.g., left/right), numerical (e.g.,
distance in steps or meters), and descriptive with static environmental features (e.g., long corridor, narrow entryway, wall).
Expressions that didn’t fit the above categories were coded asothers, and the coding results were collectively reviewed andmatched. In addition to categorizing navigation instructions,
we surveyed and classified all other speech occurrences.
EVALUATION OF REMOTE GUIDE PERFORMANCEWe describe representative characteristics of support thatemerged from the interviews with PVI, with a set of positive and negative perspectives towards the performance of TG
and UG. The effectiveness scores rated by PVI also shed lighton the need to develop the expertise of remote guides. To gaina deeper understanding of their subjective feedback, we analyze quantitative measures of verbal behaviors of the sighted
participants to examine their performance.
Effectiveness Scores

Given a question to rate the perceived effectiveness of overall
assistance from TG and UG, the average score of participantsof TG was 3.25 (SD = 1.16), whereas the average score ofparticipants of UG was 5.75 (SD = 1.39). A paired Wilcoxon
signed-rank test showed significant differences between thetwo conditions (Z=0.49, p < 0.03).
Characteristics of Support

We present 3 themes describing desirable support characteristics in remote mobility assistance. While PVI participants
rated the support from UG as “effective” to complete thenavigation tasks, we incorporate their qualitative feedback tounderstand their perspectives, as the support from TG was“preferred” for remote guidance cooperation despite it being
ineffective for the tasks.
Key characteristics extracted from trained guides in comparison to untrained guides were associated with the quality of verbal description and the descriptive terminology.
Six PVI participants (P1, P2, P4, P5, P7, P8) reported a positive opinion about easy-to-comprehend messages from TG
that they were able to respond quickly to their instructions.
Moreover, intuitive wordings used by TG for navigation cues
helped PVI participants maintain autonomy in their walking
pace, as stated by:
I was able to intuitively understand and respond quickly tothe direction of travel when I received ‘at 3 o’clock position.’(P1)
I was able to walk at my own pace. I was able to move
intuitively with ‘Yes, keep going straight.’ (P2)Considering the factor of no prior guide experiences, 5 PVI
participants (P1, P2, P3, P7, P8) reacted negatively to thequality of navigation instructions by UG. For instance, P3,
an active white cane user, encountered a stressful experience
when she received instructions that did not follow her mobility
standards using a cane. Low vision participants, with diverse
visual abilities and needs, also explained their concern about
unfavored verbal description methods by UG that did not
bridge information gaps. There were a lot of miscues, as
described by:
I can’t believe he [UG3] told me to ‘Shift XX steps to theleft.’ It is really dangerous for a white cane user to movesideways because I can detect what is in front of me but it isa lot harder to tell when there is something on my side. I was
so nervous and felt stressed. (P3)He [UG7] could have told me to leave the kitchen room,
rather than ‘Turn 180 degrees.’ I knew where the exit was. I
wanted to know which direction to go, not which direction to
face. (P7)
His [UG8] explanation was short and simple but not enoughin detail to help me. I am afraid when navigating surfacelevel changes. (P8)participants (P6, P8) mentioned the potentials of building
sufficient knowledge to explore the environment by receiving
navigation hints from TG. Specifically, P6 favored the ambient
description to gain situational awareness:
Even if the information about surroundings is too detailed, it
always helps me gain situational awareness and I have more
hints for what to expect. (P6)
On the other end, there were more instances that the information from TG was considered overly descriptive and often
unnecessary. Three PVI participants (P5, P7, P8) referred to
the lack of task-oriented supplementary information. They
wanted to know how such information is related to them tocomplete the navigation task, as described by:“I don’t need to know ’There is a big room on the left/rightside’ to complete the task.” (P5)
She [TG8] was trying to be careful with the description but I
can’t make use of all of these visual cues she was mentioning
like there are ‘four rooms’ or ‘panels hanging on the wall.’ I
don’t know whether they were hazardous and she wanted me
to be cautious. I need concrete explanation. (P8)
Another characteristics of support were with regards tothe lack of environmental familiarity, falling into a senseof insecurity and uneasiness for both parties involved in
the collaborative navigation task. Overall, despite being
satisfied with verbal description methods by TG, all 8 PVI
participants described unreliable guidance to reach their destination effectively. They perceived a lack of confidence inthe way TG gave feedback, which empowered their sense ofuneasiness while traveling. We observed negative points ofview towards directional guidance by TG, as reported by:
I can tell he [TG1] is not used to the building. I almost fell.
(P1)
I felt more worried than accomplished after reaching thedestination. He [TG3] didn’t know how much (distance) isleft so he told me to go by small steps. (P3)
She [TG6] was so confused and I even heard her asking theexperimenter ‘Am I going the right direction?’ I got worried
with her, and even though I kind of knew I missed the turn, I
kept going straight. (P6)

To emphasize areas of improvement related to navigationspecific language skills of UG, 3 PVI participants (P1, P2,
P7) referred to specific examples of non-intuitive expressions
such as numerical measurements to describe distance andorientation or with no contextual details about the environment,such as a short command like ‘Turn 180 degrees’ as mentioned
above. They experienced how such expressions took them timeto process the instructions, which were reported by:

Two PVI participants, therefore, explicitly suggested to provide remote workers with environmental familiarity to ensure
quality control with directions:

There were lots of instructions using degrees. I couldn’t
intuitively respond to ‘Turn 90 degrees.’ (P1)

If the operator is new to the building, you won’t receive
reasonable instructions. (P1)

I had to think hard for ‘Move XX steps’ instructions. I
couldn’t naturally grasp ‘XX meters more.’ Mobility was
too slow and cautious. (P2)

Quality of instructions would be a lot higher if the operator
knows the route. (P2)

PVI participants showed personal preferences regarding thelevel of detail expected in information delivery. Two PVI

I needed strong confirmation from her [TG7]. I kind of sensed
I have arrived at the destination but I was not completely sure.
(P7)

From a different perspective, P8 referred to the possibility ofleveraging information technology to compensate for the lackof environmental knowledge of remote workers:

If there is a lot more information available and systems cancollect important decision points or cautionary spots in theenvironment, I feel like remote workers will make fewer mistakes and perform even better. (P8)
Lastly, we observed how mobility assistance through remote collaboration reinforced the idea of building sharedexperiences. Also, the development of mutual efforts wasan important factor for the effectiveness of remote mobility assistance. Positive reviews were mentioned regarding
their shared experiences with the remote collaborator, in which
PVI participants explained the benefits of having a remote
guide than an in-person guide. Five of them (P1, P2, P4, P5,
P8) reported how they usually follow their guide with complete reliance and have no decision power during navigation;in comparison, they referred to the value of gaining a sense ofaccomplishment in remote sighted guidance, as described by:
I felt more accomplished than usual sighted guidance. I
was able to reach a destination with her [TG2], rather thanfollowing her when we walk together. (P2)
Unlike traditional sighted guidance, I liked how I had thepower to check my directions but I also had a companion who
was with me. I feel more accomplished and satisfied. (P8)
Even though information delivery by the paired TG received
low effectiveness scores, 4 PVI participants (P1, P4, P5, P8)
described their sense of ease and shared feelings. While no
psychological comfort was reported towards the interaction
with UG, we observed their positive attitude towards remotecollaboration with TG, such as:
I felt the sense of ease. I couldn’t reach the destination
without him [TG1]. My worries were much less while I could
hear his voice. (P1)
I had a sense of security because I have a companion to sharethe experiences. Whether I am lost or he [TG4] is lost, we
can share our troubles. It is not the end of the world for one
mistake. (P4)Interestingly, PVI participants initiated a mutual contribution
to aim the camera correctly because the camera work impacts
what the remote guides can do. P8 constantly asked whether
her walking pace was appropriate for the guides to follow thevideo. For effective remote collaboration, camera work was
not considered a one-way street, as described by:When I notice we were approaching the intersection, I tried towalk slowly and not to stop in the middle of it so the camera
can capture the whole view of the paths. I cared about the
information that I was sending. (P5)
I built an understanding that I was not simply walking alone.
I moved my camera around to send information about thesurroundings when she [TG8] lost her track. (P8)
Analysis of Verbal Behaviors

We analyzed the verbal behaviors of remote guides during thecollaborative navigation tasks, in order to associate them withthe characteristics of support perceived by PVI. Overall, theaverage numbers of speech occurrences by sighted participants

were 65 for TG (SD = 12.3) and 39 for UG (SD = 13.2), within
the average task completion times of 526.9 seconds (SD =199.4) and 316.4 seconds (SD = 137.8) respectively. Outof these speech occurrences, giving navigation instructions
described in Table 3 took 50 for TG and 34 for UG on average.
The rest involved describing the environment by mentioning
landmarks, points of interest, and obstacles (9 for TG, 3 for
UG) and delivering caring messages such as “Are you okay?
Be careful” (6 for TG, 2 for UG). Describing the environment
was notably different between TG and UG.
Table 4 shows the average frequency of the expressions fornavigation instructions mentioned by TG and UG.
Numerical Although PVI participants reported how they
could not react intuitively to the directional instructions
by UG, such as with numerical terms, TG relied on numerical expressions as frequently as UG. The quality of verbal
description was reported to be higher for TG than UG but
we observed numerical expressions being used by TG for
instructing turns and steps to shift the user position.
Descriptive TG participants were more likely to add contextual descriptions to directional cues using environmental
features, such as “There is an open entrance to the kitchenroom. It is approaching on your right. It is narrow.” Thisaccords with the subjective feedback of PVI regarding theemphasis of descriptive terminology used by TG.
By comparing the frequency of directional and descriptive
expressions, UG were biased towards using short directionalcommands, “stop and turn right” within other categorical expressions found. We also examined navigation instructions
that didn’t belong to the extracted features, in which we categorized them as Status Check. In Status Check, remote guides
had to give instructions to optimize the view angle of thecamera or capture scenes necessary to understand the current position of the PVI. As described previously that TG
performed with uneasiness, they needed to retain where thepedestrian was located on the map frequently due to getting
lost during the task. TG used Status Check especially at thestart of the route and asked for “turning around in circle” togain the overall spatial understanding and current position in
the local environment.
SELF-EVALUATION OF REMOTE GUIDE PERFORMANCE

Based on self-reported experiences of sighted participants, we
performed a thematic analysis that resulted in 3 main themes
describing the needs to develop the expertise to be effective
remote guides. TG reported significant difficulties to guideusers via remote interaction. We present different opinions andconcerns of the remote guides influenced by their expertise.
Needs for Conversation Assistance Expertise:
Awareness of Terminology and Communication Rules

We reinforced our understanding that participants from TG
were not always a knowledgeable match for the current platform of remote assistance. Their method of in-person guidance
does not constantly involve verbal communication, and theirjob is to provide detailed information about journey plans,
not turn-by-turn directional instructions which are simply inferred by their body movement in co-located guidance. All

Table 3. Frequency of Speech Occurrences by Type with Examples - % (STD) Table 4. Expressions for Giving Navigation Instructions - Avg. % (STD)
is calculated based on a mean average of individual participants’ measured
Categories
TG
UG
counts divided by their total number of speech inputs

CategoriesTG

UG

Giving navigation instructions
Turn left/right, Move forward, Make U-turnDescribing the environment
Landmarks, Points of interest, Obstacles
Signaling care
Are you okay? Be careful.

76.6
(5.4)
15.6
(5.8)
7.8
(5.6)

85.5
(4.7)
8.1
(5.3)
6.4
(4.4)

8 TG participants reported frustration and extra effort to deliver verbal instructions in comparison. They exposed theirneed to progress conversational resources, including verbal
and non-verbal cues, for efficient communication:
I usually don’t need to tell direction of travel because we areright next to each other. The companion can simply follow
me and I can physically correct her veering. (TG2)
If it is simply walking straight, we just walk together on the
spot. In tele-assistance, I needed to constantly say somethingor the companion might get worried. (TG4)
I know I don’t want to say by the number of steps but I hadto (with the tele-assistance). We need to think of signals so it
would be easier to communicate. (TG8)Participants from UG were less concerned about informationdelivery methods via remote assistance. Only 2 UG participants (UG1, UG6) realized how they were limited with verbal
description skills for efficient flow of information between
senders and receivers, as described by:
I was not sure if I was telling information in the right way. I
gave a lot of instructions using degrees, like ‘90 degrees tothe right’ but the navigator didn’t seem to respond well tothese instructions. (UG1)
I had difficulty with wording the instructions in a user-friendly
manner. (UG6)
Overall, there were more instances where participants from
UG were satisfied with their approaches to give verbal instructions. 5 UG participants (UG1, UG2, UG5, UG7, UG8)
emphasized how they succeeded in offering advance cues by
distance measurements using steps or meters. They showed apositive self-evaluation of their performance and the terminology used to deliver information, such as reported by:
I was able to tell exact measurements such as by meters to
describe distance. Though the terminology I used might nothave been the best for the receiver, the expressions wereeffective for guidance. (UG1)
I constantly instructed her [P2] to move in steps little by little,
like ‘make 5 steps ahead’ It was effective to avoid getting into
obstacles. (UG2)
I was able to inform degrees for turns. (UG7)

Directional
Left/Right, Proceed, Stop
Numerical
Proceed 2m/3steps, Rotate 90 deg. to the left
Descriptive
Follow the wall on the left. You will be going
the straight corridor.
Status check
Can you look around? Move up the camera.

47.0(14.9)
18.2(14.6)
27.6(20.3)

60.8
(9.8)
19.4
(12.2)
17.3(10.9)

7.2
(5.9)

2.6
(2.7)

Needs for Environmental Knowledge:
Familiarity with Overall Structure and Spatial Relations

Participants from TG reported major concerns related to theirfamiliarity and knowledge levels of the environment. 5 TG
participants (TG2, TG4, TG5, TG6, TG7) mentioned thatthe style of instructions would be different if they had priorcontextual understanding of the scene, such as the location oftactile pavings. They described the importance of preliminary
spatial awareness and learning in order to be prepared forsighted guidance, as reported by:
I usually take time to research about my client’s destinationin regular sighted guidance, like how to safely navigate fromthe station and knowing its accessible areas. (TG5)
It sounds more appropriate to guide only the places I know. If
I knew which direction that a door slides open, I can provide
cautionary directions along the route. Right from the start, it
was too difficult to navigate. I don’t know which direction theuser was facing. (TG6)
If I knew the travel paths, I would be able to give accurate
instructions. From the screen, I can’t tell how far things areor how many steps would get to certain distance. (TG7)
In addition, all TG participants emphasized the biggest challenge in video-mediated interaction, such as the problem withsensing depth or completely losing the user’s current location.
They also reported poor video quality and limited field of view
to observe ground levels and ramps, detect moving objects, orinform orientation cues at the interaction. To compensate forthese challenges, 7 of them (except TG2) suggested technicalefforts and environmental familiarity, such as described by:
If the camera angle can be adjusted, I might be able to capture
the travel paths better and give accurate directions. (TG1)
If I have a reasonable map and understand the overall spatial
relations with respect to the current location, I will have lessoverloads and can assist the person remotely. (TG6)
If I can get higher image contrast for noticing obstacles andknow the place, I can smoothly instruct and guide the blind
person. (TG8)
It is important to note how none of the participants from UG
reported the problem with estimating depth and tracking user
position and orientation from the screen. Although they commented, similar to TG participants, about the poor video qual-

ity and limited field of view influencing negatively towards
their performance, 5 UG participants (UG1, UG3, UG5, UG7,
UG8) had a positive self-evaluation that they were able togive preparatory information at the right timing (e.g., ‘after
you turn this intersection, you will be approaching the kitchenarea’). We expect that their prior knowledge about the environment gave UG participants hints to navigate under technicallimitations, and one of them added a comment:
I don’t think I will be able to navigate the pedestrian well inan unfamiliar environment. (TG6)Needs for Co-Navigation Expertise:
Negotiation Behaviors to Build Mutual Contribution

Co-navigation strategies were required to help both remote
guides and users negotiate their tasks together and accomplish
their roles. The interaction in the pair of TG8 and P8 involved
a quick Q&A session before the navigation started, such as
TG8 asked about the preference of walking in the middle ofthe corridor or along the side wall. As such, P8 actively shared
her visual conditions and daily navigation scenarios (e.g., P8
mentioned about her remaining light perception and that she
can follow the ceiling lights to walk a straight hallway).
Rather than having leader-follower relationships, such that
remote workers lead the way with full responsibility, TG participants referred to the need of receiving mutual efforts:
Communication with the pedestrian is affected by how considerate the receiver can be. (TG2)He [P5] moved steps backs to capture the view of the crossroad. I was able to get the overall picture of the paths and go
back to following the map. (TG5)
Unlike regular sighted guidance where I can rely on othersensory information and techniques on the spot, I only havethe camera. The pedestrian needs to be considerate about
capturing the right information. (TG6)DISCUSSION

To discuss future research and design opportunities in assisting PVI through remote sighted guidance for effective indoor
navigation, we developed our research probes from the performance assessment by PVI combined with the analysis of
their verbal interaction and the self-assessment feedback fromthe guides. We came across similar themes that revealed therequirements of remote guides for verbal description, environmental, and co-navigation awareness. Specifically, we suggest
the importance of a) preliminary guidance cooperation awareness b) guidelines for verbal description methods b) design
efforts to compensate for the lack of environmental knowledge
in video-mediated collaboration.
Strengthened Expertise through Preliminary Guidance
Cooperation AwarenessThe perspectives derived from our study with trained and untrained sighted guides, matched with the concerns of PVI,
highlighted the importance of tailored guidelines for suitableguidance terminology and remote cooperation awareness tooffer desirable mobility support. First, terminology guidelines for remote mobility assistance should be emphasized, as
untrained sighted guides had misconceptions about desirable
verbal description methods and trained guides also faced challenges to adopting their prior learning especially in guiding
directions. PVI explicitly reported the difficulties to intuitively respond to navigation instructions from UG because
they lacked contextual descriptions to the directional cues orused unfriendly navigation-specific languages such as distancemeasurements by steps or meters. While our analysis of verbal
behaviors validated that TG provided contextual descriptions
using environmental features, PVI were negative towards theoverall experience with TG as well, as reported by: P5 - “I
don’t need to know ‘There is a big room on the left/right side’
to complete the task” and wished for concrete confirmationthat they were going the right way. TG reported frustration andextra effort if they tried to follow the already known strategies
to interact with visually impaired people such as in [18, 31].
They usually rely on nonverbal methods to focus on providing
detailed information about journey plans, as reported by TG4- “If it is simply walking straight, we just walk together on the
spot. In tele-assistance, I needed to constantly say somethingor the companion might get worried.”
We extracted insights on cooperation awareness in remote navigation, which is different from the traditional co-navigation
experience, as reported by: P2 - “I felt more accomplishedthan usual sighted guidance. I was able to reach a destination
with her [TG2], rather than following her.” Sighted guides
are typically responsible for covering all of the requirements
in goal-oriented mobility but to coordinate remote navigation
effectively, we have found the value of shared understandingfor each side of the collaborators. For instance, the interaction in the pair of TG8 and P8 involved a quick Q&A before
the navigation started. The guides also appreciated active
contribution from PVI (i.e., P5 and P8) to decide what information they should give. One feasible recommendation for
remote guides is to incorporate a briefing session to introduce
themselves or question about their mobility or visual aid preferences. Though the guides for the remote guidance service
can collect such user information beforehand if the users initially register their mobility habits or visual conditions, theformation of a common ground through confirming the user
information is important to reach mutual understanding [42].
Guidelines for Verbal Description

Based on our analysis of desirable characteristics of support,
we provide the following suggestions for the language andcues to better serve navigation tasks via remote interaction.
Describe directional cues with contextual details We suggest remote guides to offer contextual details in turn-byturn navigation (e.g., “face the wall”, “to exit the room, theentryway is on your right”instead of “turn XX degrees”)
to elicit quick responses from users. Short and systematic
instructions such as “stop.. turn right.. proceed” without
any contextual information will not give PVI the ability to
expect possible future actions and maintain their preferredmobility. A study by [11] has reported improvement of PVI
user-remote guide interaction when non-expert guides weregiven with a preset of instruction commands (e.g., “obstacleon the left/right, keep left/right to walk around it”). These
commands are precise and have contextual details to informthe users.
Avoid numerical terms and be aware of user preferences
Remote guides should avoid the use of adding degrees toleft/right turns (e.g., “rotate 180 degrees”) or numericalscales for distance (e.g., “2 meters more”), because PVI
have difficulties following these types of instructions. One
useful directional instruction is to use intuitive messages
such as by referring to the positions of the numbers on
a clock (e.g., “at 3 o’clock position”) [32]. Describing
distance with environmental features (e.g., “You gostraight about four rooms”) is suggested in [34] but PVI
cannot always make use of descriptive information of
the geometric space and the level of detail preferred isconnected to their individual needs (e.g., users with residual
sight, the use of travel aids).
Speak in a confident and certain tone Audio information is
the only reliance for people navigating with visual impairments under remote mobility assistance. The tone of voiceof the remote guides has a huge impact on the overall user
experience. Showing insecurity and uneasiness will reinforce users to lose comfort and a sense of security during navigation. PVI constantly face stressful navigation
experiences, and it is thus important to give them strong
confirmation that their actions are leading towards the goal.
Effectiveness of Environmental Familiarity

We have found that environmental familiarity of remote guides
plays an important role in ensuring the quality of remote navigation, as observed in the lower effectiveness ratings by PVI incompleting the experimental navigation task with TG. Guides
who did not have enough environmental knowledge (i.e., TG)
constantly faced ambiguity in guiding the planned routes andreported challenges in sensing depth and detecting the current location of the PVI. In our tested set-up, remote mobility assistance often led to technical troubles, including poor
video quality or connection. In such cases, individuals withenvironmental knowledge (i.e., UG) were able to give navigation instructions to PVI due to their cognitive maps thatcompensated for the limited visual and spatial capabilities ofvideo communication. These technical problems might bealso consistent in real-world scenarios. As a potential solution,
remote navigation services could prioritize connecting a visually impaired user with a remote guide who has environmental
knowledge of the user’s location.
Approaches to Compensate for the Lack of Environmental
Knowledge

Environmental knowledge, however, is not a common talent
recruited for by current remote assistance platforms marketed
to visually impaired people. In real-world applications, it ishighly expected that a PVI user is connected with a trained
guide without environmental knowledge like in our experiment. The advanced user interfaces of video communication
facilitate a promising approach to support remote workers’ environmental unfamiliarity. Regarding how TG constantly losttrack of overall spatial relations, visualizing accurate real-timeuser position and orientation over the detailed maps could compensate for their challenges with environmental understanding.
The use of reconstructed 3D maps is also beneficial to represent a remote indoor environment for supporting spatialawareness of remote guides. Recent computer vision technologies allow us to obtain realistic reconstructed 3D maps fromimage and depth data [25].
Alternatively, collaborative behaviors of PVI contributed toproviding better camera views for remote guides, and thatcamera angle had a huge impact on the agent’s spatial understanding. P8 constantly asked whether her walking pace wasappropriate for the sighted partner to follow the video. P5
also cared to turn their body sideways at the intersection tocapture a better camera view. Again, suggestions for cooperation awareness would facilitate active contribution from PVI
to assist the guides to know the surrounding environments andmake effective information delivery.
Limitations of the Study

Our work aims to maximize training opportunities of remote
guides because most of the commercially-available applications (e.g., Be My Eyes) involve crowd workers/volunteers
who are not always trained for remotely or physically assisting
people with visual impairments. We expect other implications
if professional remote guides such as Aira agents are recruitedas TG. The study, however, has to consider the fact that current remote assistance platforms are limited to subscription
areas (i.e., Aira is not available globally). Our analysis of thecomparative study also needs to address other environmental
settings (e.g., crowded travel paths) to further correlate withthe benefits of sighted guidance in ensuring visually impaired
people’s ability to travel in complex navigation [41]. Additionally, we have followed certain homogeneous conditions
to control the performance variability of untrained guides andallowed for various visual abilities and mobility preferencesof visually impaired participants. Individual differences need
to be accounted for in our analysis.
CONCLUSION

This work has presented the first-known investigation of remote guide performances in assisting people with visual impairments in indoor navigation. Based on our comparative
analysis of trained and untrained guides as remote guides, we
broaden our understanding of verbal description, environmental knowledge requirements, and co-navigation strategies todevelop expertise of the remote guides and enhance their qualifications. We extracted social and technical recommendations
to maximize training opportunities for untrained remote guides
and improve the current design of remote mobility assistance.
We hope that our implications will pave the way towards apromising remote guidance platform for people navigatingwith visual impairments.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank all the study participants, and all publications supportand staff. This research work was supported by Japan Scienceand Technology Agency (JST) CREST project.

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