**5. Conclusion**

*Visual Impairment and Blindness - What We Know and What We Have to Know*

*(a) Welcome screen of ways2see offering basic information and selection of user profile. (b) Wayfinding* 

*between two addresses. (c) Search for facilities in the surrounding area.*

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**Figure 6.**

People with disabilities and their (spatial) needs are still at the edge—in society as well as in geography/science. To allow people moving away from this fringe, an essential step can be made by increasing the personal and individual mobility. Mobility means independency, e.g., from assisting persons, is enhancing quality of life, and finally is widening the individual (spatial) scope, which potentially leads to more interrelation and inclusion in society.

ways2see offers a new tool to people with visual impairments or blindness, which increases the personal mobility by supporting orientation and wayfinding for pre-trip planning. The user interface of ways2see is designed toward the needs of the target group and offers the possibility of personalization through different user profiles. The results of pre-trip planning are (1) information about facilities in the surrounding and/or (2) personalized directions for wayfinding toward these facilities or defined addresses. As a difference to existing tools, the results show (3) an extensive number of attributes presented as orientation and navigation hints along routes, (4) a user profile based indication of obstacles for the avoidance of barriers, and (5) personalized directions through the integration of this information in the routing analysis. The user profile-oriented results can be provided through GIS analysis on an expert level behind the scenes, where spatial data is analyzed with different network settings. Special focus hereby is given to the definition of the basic network, using sidewalks and adapting the standard network settings to the requirements of ways2see.

Parallel to offer user-oriented and customizable information as routes and route directions, the results are presented to the target group in an accessible way by specific interface design, map layout, and map symbols. The Internet platform itself and the list of addresses as POI and directions are available with and are suitable for screen readers. ways2see can be described as accessible tool providing information about accessibility.

The combination of spatial information; its analysis with geographic technologies, namely, GIS; and the application toward a marginalized group underpins the potential of geography in disability studies by a clear positioning of the competence for spatial approaches. ways2see is the result of a participative process, integrating persons with visual impairments or blindness through iterative steps into the development process. Different strategies were elaborated and are used to meet the needs of the target group. Inter- and transdisciplinarity is guaranteed through the partner network and allows the development of a marketable product.

In a future perspective, ways2see not only provides spatial information as orientation and navigation information but shows the potential to work as supporting tool in urban development and planning processes and can help to reduce barriers in the urban environments and—furthermore—in our minds. It is also intended as one way to raise awareness in society and herewith to promote social sustainability and inclusion.

#### **Acknowledgements**

ways2see is funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG). Special thanks are given to the project team. SynerGIS Informationssysteme GmbH is responsible for the coding, and Odilien-Institute—Society for People with Visual Impairment or Blindness is providing applied knowledge and expertise. The Department of Geography and Regional Science, University of Graz, is the scientific leader of the project.

The author would like to express special thanks to Sebastian Drexel, Antonia Dückelmann, Simon Landauer, Bettina Mandl and Jana Obermeier for their enthusiasm and personal commitment and their creative and innovative contributions to this project.

**317**

**Author details**

Susanne Zimmermann-Janschitz

provided the original work is properly cited.

Department of Geography and Regional Science, University of Graz, Graz, Austria

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

\*Address all correspondence to: susanne.janschitz@uni-graz.at

*The Application of Geographic Information Systems to Support Wayfinding for People…*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89308*

The author acknowledges the financial support of this publication by the University of Graz.

*The Application of Geographic Information Systems to Support Wayfinding for People… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89308*
