Hi, 

my name is Olof Öberg and I am a computer science student 
with an interest in cognitive science. 

Right now I am researching how one could make a user 
interface to a document management system tailored for 
someone that is blind. 

A document management system keeps track of all changes 
that have been made to a document so that one can undo 
changes or look back at what has changed and when it changed. 
In short the system keeps a history of changes to a 
document.

For a non-blind user this can be accomplished by visualizing  
the history of a document as a graph where the nodes are 
the document at specific times in the history. The edges of 
the graph naturally symbolize the changes made and visualizes 
that two (or more in some cases) nodes are each others' 
predecessor and successor, respectively.

Now my problem is to make this user interface comprehensible 
to someone that can not see.

I have this prejudice that more complex spatial mental 
representations are based on the ability that one has actually 
seen it or something similar. 

For example, I (who is not blind) have mental images of the 
above mentioned graph that almost completely resembles the one 
I have seen. The same happens if I try to create a mental image 
of the road I would take to get down to the university from 
where I live. 

One can see the graph mentioned above to be like the road to 
school. Every street corner, or where one has a choice of 
direction, is a node in the graph and the road the edges in 
the graph.

My question is how a blind person would create that mental 
image. If one has become blind later in life the process is 
probably similar to mine, but if one has never seen a visual 
representation of the graph how would it be thought about?

I am interested in any personal experience that explains the 
process used to navigate and manipulate something that 
resembles a graph. This can be organizing gadgets on a desktop 
(real or virtual) or even better understanding the organization 
of an unknown desktop.

If anyone can point me to any research done on the subject that 
would be helpful too.

Thanks in advance, Olof.


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