Shapes: A multi-sensory environment for the B/VI and hearing impaired community

The focus of our paper is to describe a multi-sensory Virtual Environment (MSVE), called Shapes, which includes touch (haptic), scent and sound feedback. The touch and sound I/O creates a 3-D environment for the user, while scent feedback replaces sound feedback for the hearing impaired user. Scent also enhances the environment and acts as a catalyst during the exploration of the MSVE. The Shapes virtual environment consists of three unique solid objects (shapes) and three associated containers. The user is asked to find and select the solid shapes and move them into their appropriate container. Implementation details and experimental results are summarized. The success of scent-feedback as an additional I/O channel is measured in correlation to task performance in Shapes. The overall experience of this multi-sensory HCI is expected to foster future development of hardware I/O for visually and/or hearing impaired computer users.