Recruiting

VisionWay

Sponsor:

Ohio State University

Code:

NCT07713979

Conditions

Persons With Visual Disabilities

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

walking path

Study Details

Brief summary:

The challenge of outdoor wayfinding, critical for People with Visual Impairments (PVI), consists in helping users safely walk to a pre-determined nearby destination. The main focus of existing solutions from research and industry is to leverage the user's smartphone to receive safe moving directions either from a remote operator or smart app. However, multiple paths may exist to connect users with their destination, each one with unique characteristics in terms of accessibility and safety. Unfortunately, little to no attention has been paid in helping PVI decide, before even starting to walk, which path to take based on their accessibility. Thus, a barrier identified is that the followed path may not be accessible because sidewalk features such as potholes, uncontrolled crossing, interrupted sidewalks, and objects are not known in advance. The investigators' goal is to develop a mobile live, local, outside map framework called VisionWay, customized for PVI-user as a wayfinding tool to analyze, before starting to walk, the accessibility of candidate paths and choose one to the destination.

Conditions

Persons With Visual Disabilities

Study ID

NCT07713979

Start date

Feb 26, 2026

Status verified date

Jul, 2026

Completion date

Sep 1, 2027

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Sep 1, 2027

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • At least 18 years old
  • Able to provide informed consent
  • Vision worse than 20/200, encompassing PVI with severe and profound impairment as well as total blindness.

Group 1 Inclusion:

\- PVI meeting general inclusion criteria and without mobility aids

Group 2 Inclusion:

\- PVI meeting general inclusion criteria and who use a cane as a mobility aid

Group 3 Inclusion:

\- PVI meeting general inclusion criteria and who use guide dogs.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Conditions that prevent safe ambulation that include, but are not limited to, neuromuscular disorder, post-operative state (such as orthopedic surgeries or cardiac surgeries), balance issues, history of falls in the last 6 months, or at the discretion of the investigator.
  • Use of walker or wheelchair

Study Design

Enrollment

100 participants

Anticipated

Intervention Model

Single group

Primary purpose

Other

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Recorded walks

The study team will record videos of a subset of users walking on selected paths on campus. Participants may be presented with the maps ahead of the walk. Such videos may include video recordings from the perspective of the study team monitoring the participant. Additionally, personal recording devices such as GoPro/action cameras, or recording eyeglasses may be provided to the participant to record walks from their perspective. From the preselected paths, the set and order will be randomized between participants. The study team will prompt participants after each path to identify and describe path features that affect accessibility, as well as to provide a perceived accessibility score (on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is highly accessible). The video recording may include audio description of these relevant sidewalk features and the score. The research team member will record their observations of the walking paths as well.

Interventions

walking path

Participants will be asked to walk a defined pathway through campus. From the preselected paths, the set and order will be randomized between participants.

Primary outcome measure

  • PVI accessibility on sidewalks [ Time Frame: For a period over 2 hours ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Abigail Larsen, MPH

614-293-5287abigail.larsen@osumc.edu

Matt Patton

614-293-5287matthew.patton@osumc.edu

Locations

University of Maine

Recruiting

Orono, Maine, United States, 04469

Contacts

Nicholas Giudice, PhD

207.581.2151Nicholas.giudice@maine.edu

Justin Brown

207.581.2151justin.r.brown@osumc.edu

Ohio State University

Recruiting

Columbus, Ohio, United States, 43212

Contacts

Abigail Larsen, MPH

614-406-4423abigail.larsen@osumc.edu

Matthew Patton

614-293-5287matthew.patton@osumc.edu

Principal Investigator:

Sayoko Moroi, MD, PhD

More Information

Sponsor

Ohio State University

Last update posted

Jul 20, 2026

Last verified

Jul, 2026

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Ohio State University on 2026-07-20.