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New York Hall of Science is World's First Museum to Install New Program for Visually Impaired Visitors

Queens, N.Y. -- The New York Hall of Science will be the first museum in the world to install a new invention to improve accessibility for visitors who are visually impaired. The system, nicknamed Ping!, will allow users to navigate the Hall, listen to audio descriptions and interact with exhibitions using a cell phone-based interface.

Ping! is the first cell phone-based navigation tool to guide disabled visitors from one place to another in public exhibition spaces such as science and technology museums. Touch Graphics Company developed Ping! as part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant.

Ping! utilizes a network of wireless audio beacons at key destinations that make it possible for persons who are blind or visually impaired to independently navigate and to learn about exhibit content. The Hall currently has 30 beacons around exhibits, restrooms, the Cafe and the Science Shop.

Ping! allows visitors to:

Use their own familiar cell phones to call a toll-free phone number and interact with a human-voice computer attendant, as they select a personal "ping" sound from a catalog of available chirps, whistles and chimes

Choose a destination and use their phone as a "remote control," pressing a designated key to trigger their personal sound to be played from the place to which they wish to travel

Reach their destination, where the phone becomes an interactive audio guide, providing explanations and opportunities for requesting additional information or triggering computer displays or other local events

User testing of Ping! will take place in January 2007 when groups of five visually-impaired visitors will test the system's navigation effectiveness.

As part of the NSF grant, Touch Graphics, Inc. also created a touchable version of the Hall's Rocket Park utilizing universal design. The Interactive 3D Touch Rocket Model provides identifying audio and visual information about the rockets and the history of rocketry when one of 15 parts on the exhibit are touched.