Design Guidelines for Audio-Haptic Immersive Applications for People with Visual Disabilities.

We describe the goals, issues and constraints found creating audio-haptic applications oriented to people with visual disabilities. Using audio-haptic games as a measuring tool, we have found unexpected features in the user's audio perception. Our goal is to define a model of perception and usability guidelines for developers creating immersive accessible applications. This paper presents initial findings, related to user precision over 3D audio and haptic effects. The game and environment use a multichannel speaker array taking advantage of Microsoft DirectX multichannel audio support (5.1) as the audio processing abstraction layer. The environment allows simple haptic assistance through force feedback joystick devices, also supported by Microsoft DirectX as the force feedback and user input abstraction layer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]