Plan.b is a brilliant concept device of a digital street plan for blind people. It « prints » a palpable image of their immediate surroundings.

The surface of the device is made of dots, just like braille displays, but at a bigger scale. User’s position is indicated by a small arrow at the center. The « printed » map represent a zoomed area of map, where the streets are represented by the black (flat) areas.

The user can feel the buildings and have a better appreciation of distances, architecture proportions and a more global view of the surroundings.

By pressing the dots the user could get additionnal audible informations about buildings and streets (using speech synthesys, I guess).

Such device could help blind people to freely and independently navigate in foreign places and environment. 

Concept by Robert Richter – Oriko Design Büro.