Ph.D. Student Making Digital Maps That Blind People Can Hear

“Map region. Graphic clickable. Blank.”

That’s usually the only information Brandon Biggs receives from digital maps.

Biggs is a human-centered computing Ph.D. student in Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing. He is almost totally blind due to Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis (LCA), a rare degenerative eye disorder affecting about one in 40,000 people.

Based on his experience, Biggs argues that most digital maps aren’t accessible to people who are blind. Even worse, he said, the needs of the blind are usually overlooked.

“When I started research on maps, I had never viewed a weather, campus, or building map, so I didn’t realize the amount of information maps contain,” Biggs said. “How do you represent shapes, orientation, and layout through audio and translate that into a geographic map?”

To answer these questions, Biggs founded XRNavigation, a company focused on developing accessible digital tools. Its flagship product, Audiom, is a cross-sensory map that people can see and hear through text.