Navigating complex indoor spaces is one of the challenges for individuals with blindness or visual impairments. Smartphone-based solutions offer a promising approach to addressing these challenges due to their affordability, accessibility, and practicality. This study systematically reviewed the literature on smartphone-based indoor navigation systems for blind and visually impaired individuals, focusing on technologies, techniques, and evaluation methods. From an initial pool of 840 studies, rigorous selection criteria yielded a final set of 16 papers. The review highlighted three main approaches for developing smartphone-based indoor navigation assistance: Sensor-based, Vision-based, and Hybrid methods. The findings underscore the potential of smartphones to enhance accessibility and inclusivity while emphasizing the importance of a user-centered design approach in future development efforts. By identifying trends and gaps, this study provides insights for advancing smartphone-based assistive technologies for indoor navigation.

Navigating large indoor environments poses significant challenges for persons with disabilities (PWDs), particularly those who are blind, visually impaired (BVI), or mobility impaired (MI). Accessible-assistive technologies (AATs) like MABLE (Mapping for Accessibility in BuiLt Environments) aim to bridge these gaps by promoting accessibility, independence, and inclusion. This study explores the potential impact and adoption of MABLE through two surveys targeting BVI and MI communities, assessing its capacity to enhance indoor navigation, quality of life, and employment opportunities.

Survey results reveal that MABLE is highly desirable, with 93% of respondents identifying its usefulness in unfamiliar environments and 82.5% expressing willingness to use it in familiar settings. Participants emphasized the importance of detailed, user-centered features such as accessible entrances, restrooms, ramps, elevators, and emergency exits. Preferred venues for MABLE use include airports, hotels, conference centers, shopping malls, and workplaces.

Despite its broad appeal, findings highlight varying adoption rates, particularly among unemployed respondents, underscoring the need to demonstrate MABLE’s broader benefits, such as fostering social engagement and independence. Overall, MABLE holds significant promise not only for BVI and MI users but also for other groups, offering a scalable and inclusive solution to improve accessibility within complex indoor environments.

PWDs have historically faced serious challenges hampering their ability to contribute equally, which is not only a violation of their human rights but a loss for societies and economies. The study focuses on Greece (Passenger Shipping), where disability benefits are low compared to what is the case internationally, and has the lowest expenditure internationally on disability benefits as a percentage of GDP. From the findings of the survey, we can see that the services provided on board are moderate and depend on the type of ship. Staff training is required and the State does not support actions to optimise transport for disabled people. Moreover, they consider it crucial to enrich the services on board with digital applications, as this would improve their autonomy.

Digital wayfinding systems hold great potential for supporting visually impaired individuals in their orientation and mobility (O&M). Despite advances in assistive technologies, many systems fail to adequately reflect possible user requirements. This study aims to synthesize and assess requirements for the design and implementation of digital guidance systems that align with user needs. A systematic literature review identified 25 potential requirements for such systems. These requirements were then validated through expert interviews employing a Likert-style scale. Further insights were generated by examining requirements with deviating assessments.

This work contributes to the field of assistive technology by providing insights regarding functional requirements for the development of effective digital wayfinding systems.