About Xr Navigation

XR Navigation is a company focused on building inclusive solutions to big problems. The first product from XR Navigation, Audiom, makes digital geography accessible to blind and low-vision people for the first time. It also makes geography easier for people with mobility impairments, colorblindness, and other disabilities that are not being served by current map tools. Audiom is a digital map viewer and editor that’s fully usable visually, auditorily, and through text. Our vision is that every map is accessible to everyone, and we have the platform other map tools can use to make their maps accessible and legally compliant for the first time.

Experience How Audiom Works For Yourself

Audiom is a cross-sensory map component which means that it’s equally usable visually, in audio, and tactilely (through text and a braille display). This means that the same map can be used by users who, for one reason or another, are unable to understand or use the map when it is made in only one way (visual, auditory, or tactile).

Experience More Audiom Examples

Publications

The XR Navigation team is committed to thorough and reliable (rigorous and reproducible) results on systems that are co-designed by diverse users. Don’t take our word that what we have is better than what’s out there, look at the results of these evaluations

ICAD 2022 (1) (PDF, opens an external site)

Evaluation of a Non-Visual Auditory Choropleth and Travel Map Viewer.

ICAD 2022 (2) (PDF, opens an external site)

Audiom: An auditory web-based geographic map viewer showing COVID-19 state data and a travel map

OCAD University (Opens an external site)

Designing Accessible Nonvisual Maps

ICAD 2019 (PDF, opens an external site)

Design and evaluation of an audio game-inspired auditory map interface

ICAD 2018 (PDF, opens an external site)

The audio game laboratory: Building maps from games

A group of young people pointing at, and examining a map.

The Problem Is Massive

Most of the over 30 million publicly facing maps on websites today are made only visual, which is not accessible to blind or dyslexic users, difficult to use for mobility impaired users, and illegal in many jurisdictions. A frequent workaround, compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.1.1, is to provide a text description of the information present in the map. However, spatial information (information about where things are) is extremely difficult to communicate effectively. Most of the time this text does not provide equal access to the geographic information in the map. If text was truly an acceptable alternative to represent spatial information, the professions of cartography and data visualization would not exist or would be completely different.

But We have The Solution

Audiom presents spatial information in three ways: visual, audio, and tactually through text and a braille display. When a map is created, it can be placed (embedded) in a website, similar to other online mapping tools.

A woman designing a map on a desktop computer.

Our Partners

Funding

Audiom is being developed in partnership with The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute through the following grants:

Completed Grants

Leveraging Maps and Computer Vision to Support Indoor Navigation for Blind Travelers – COVID Supplement

National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health, R01EY029033

Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Low Vision and Blindness

National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), 90RE5024

Leveraging Maps and Computer Vision to Support Indoor Navigation for Blind Travelers – Diversity Supplement

National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health, R01EY029033

Active Grants

Cross-Sensory Digital Map Project Development

National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), 90IFDV0020

Mobilizing Non-Visual Digital Maps

National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research Grant No. 90REGE0018

Our Investors:

Meet Our Team

Brandon Biggs

Brandon Biggs is the CEO and co-founder of XR Navigation. He began working on Audiom during his masters and is continuing research and development on Audiom during his PhD. Brandon was inspired to build a map viewer when he realized that the design conventions present in audio games (Opens in a new tab) could easily be applied to real-world geographic information.

Brandon’s LinkedIn

Chris Toth

Chris is the chief technology officer and co-founder of XR Navigation. He joined the Audiom team in February 2021 and has built much of the core infrastructure. He is extremely passionate about building accessible apps for both himself and other blind individuals.

Chris’ LinkedIn

James Coughlan

James Coughlan is the principal investigator and head researcher on the project. His background is on computer vision wayfinding applications, and he is very interested in making the navigation experience better for blind individuals.

James’ LinkedIn

CONTACT US

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