Tactile symbols built from rapid prototyping in wayfinding systems
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Alixandrini, M.J.; 2Moulin Fosse, J.; 3Lima Filho, D.; 4de Oliveira Fernandes, V.
1UFBA Email: alixandrini@gmail.com
2UFRRJ Email: jumoulin@yahoo.com
3UFRRJ Email: dlifo@ig.com.br
4UFBA Email: vivian.deofernandes@gmail.com
Abstract
The information society every day turns into communication society. The dependence of communication it is not only over the internet, cell phones, radio, TV, movies, newspapers and magazines, but it is part of our basic infrastructure of road signage, automated navigation and safety signs. The World Health Organization States that 1% of the world's population has some kind of visual impairment, being that, of this number more than 90% are in developing countries. It is important to note that the pro-portion of persons with disabilities increases with age. In general, children until 14 years are 4.3% of visually impaired people in Brazil. Have those people who are age 65 or more years are 54% of visually impaired people. In developed countries, 5% of visually impaired children and 75% are elderly. In other words, as the population ages the proportion of disabled people increases, necessitating demands to meet your specific needs. The evolution and the need for localization concepts in circulation controlled environments, such as industries, shopping malls, large parks and resorts culminated with the creation of the concept of wayfinding systems. Designating a set of signaling equipment such as: maps, totems, signs and patterns that help navigation and location of people in these environments. The proposal of this research was to develop tactile sym-bols of easy playback in rapid prototyping systems, through printers Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) with deposition of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). This guaran-tees the possibility of greater standardization of symbology in wayfinding systems. Ge-ometric and pictorial symbols were designed which were assessed in periodic interviews. Symbols varying in shape and size aimed at the internal representation of locations to the first floor of the main building of the administration of the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. Were still experienced the association with toponyms Braille and the symbolization of the building limits and graphic scale. The symbols "pictorial" sought to analogy to symbolic references that could be identified by tactile or Braille characters form, already used routinely for signaling, as for example the presence of numbers used in elevators. Braille literacy is not universal to all the community of visually impaired and there are different degrees of capacity of perception of Braille as results concisely evaluated parameters of printed symbols by means of polymer melting systems, paradigms of traditional cartography and tactile cartography. Between the paradigms found between the theory of symbol design for conventional maps and tactile maps are: the use of pictorial symbols; symbol orientation; degree of generalization; positional references. The results reveal an important consideration that must be evaluated in experiments presented to a representative sample and in its continuity is proposed to evaluate the interaction of symbols designed with the capability of memorization and navigation of the visually impaired.