A supermarket trial of our ShopTalk system at Lee's Market Place in Logan, Utah. ShopTalk is a proof-of-concept wearable system designed to assist visually impaired shoppers with finding shelved products in grocery stores. The system is based on a simple conceptual formula: Independent Blind Shopping = Verbal Route Directions + Shelf Barcode Scans. This individual is a cane user. She has selected a product, and is now following a set of verbal instructions generated by the system from the topological map of the supermarket. The route in this section of the video starts at the store lobby and ends at the aisle where the selected product resides. When the shopper scans any shelf barcode, the system begins to use its database, called the barcode connectivity matrix (BCM). The database associates each shelf barcode with an aisle number, the side of the aisle, a shelf section number, a shelf number in that shelf section, and a relative position on the shelf. When the shopper scans a shelf barcode, the system can tell her, "You are in aisle 5" or "Move 2 shelves down" or "Scan five barcodes left" or "Walk 10 feet down the aisle" etc. The shopper receives these instructions through a head phone. Notice how the shopper first finds shelf barcodes by touch and then scans them by aligning the barcode scanner with the help of two plastic stabilizers on both sides of the scanner. After the target barcode is scanned, the shopper reaches over, gets the product, and puts it into the ...
Keywords: shoptalk, assistive technology, rehabilitation engineering, accessible shopping, orientation and mobility, verbal route directions, accessibility, wearable computing, barcode localization, barcode detection, visually impaired, blind, john nicholson, vladimir kulyukin, eyes-free shopping
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