Thesis Ideation

Initial Idea

At the beginning of the semester, I was diving through the concept of navigational technologies and its scope of improvement for a particular user group. Upon research and interest, I decided to start my research for improving the navigational technology for the category of visually impaired people. One of the main reasons for deciding this research topic is after getting influenced by watching a dog guiding a visually impaired person in our university. Mobility and Independence of doing things are most important to everyone, the struggles faced by the visually impaired person enlightened me to develop something to support for their daily life. The research covered the technologies of Haptic and audio interactions. But with the impact of COVID 19 and a major challenge in recruiting the user groups and continuing ht e project in long run, on discussion with the supervisor I took a risk in changing the topic in the area of the navigation which seems to have higher importance of this lockdown and social distancing.

Finial Idea: Contact Tracing and Navigation during pandemics

Image Source: GettyImages-1216351064

With the research of tracking and navigation, and understanding how these technologies can be used for tracking human behaviours, tracking the major attraction points and stuffs gave a direction towards few of the suggestions I got earlier. My research is done for understanding how possible technologies of tracing along with interaction design can build a system or proof of concept for tracking and controlling the spread of viruses during pandemics. Current research is proceeding through the different tracking beacon technologies like infrared, Bluetooth and its existing projects. A deep understanding of how tracing techniques were introduced during major pandemics of the century. With the current knowledge in this topic, I believe that I would be implementing technologies of Arduino or Rasperbby pie, Beacon tracking and Android studios fr developing a proof of concept prototype for this research.