Understanding Nature Engagement Experiences of Blind People

Paper Title

Understanding Nature Engagement Experiences of Blind People

Publication Info

• Topic area: Nature engagement and accessibility for blind individuals
• Keywords: Nature engagement, blind people, accessibility, multisensory strategies, assistive technologies, emotional connection, human–nature interaction, environmental awareness, inclusive design

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Existing research on nature engagement predominantly focuses on sighted individuals, neglecting the experiences and needs of blind people. Assistive technologies for blind users are often functionality-oriented, emphasizing navigation and mobility, while offering limited support for the experiential and emotional dimensions of nature engagement.
• Significance: Nature engagement is critical for psychological restoration, emotional well-being, and identity formation. Designing inclusive systems that support rich, autonomous, and multisensory engagement with nature can improve the quality of life for blind individuals.
• Motivation and related work: Prior work has introduced tactile maps, voice-based navigation, and multisensory augmented reality for accessibility, but these solutions are largely task-driven and fail to address the experiential aspects of nature. This paper seeks to fill this gap by understanding how blind people engage with nature and by proposing design implications for assistive technologies.

Solution

• Proposed approach: A mixed-methods study combining a comparative survey of nature relatedness and in-depth interviews with blind participants to explore their nature engagement experiences, challenges, and expectations for assistive technologies.
• Novelty:
  1. Empirical insights into how blind people engage with nature using multisensory strategies and within safe, familiar contexts.
  2. Identification of barriers to active exploration and ecological awareness among blind individuals.
  3. Design implications for assistive technologies that support inclusive, multisensory, and emotionally resonant nature engagement.
  4. Proposals for integrating digital and physical pathways to enhance blind people’s connection with nature.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted a Nature Relatedness Scale (NRS) survey with 20 blind and 20 sighted participants to compare affective, cognitive, and experiential dimensions of nature connection.
  • Performed semi-structured interviews with 16 blind participants to explore their sensory strategies, emotional connections, and expectations for assistive technologies.
  • Thematic analysis of interview data to identify key themes and inform design recommendations.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Blind participants scored significantly lower on the NRS overall (U = 34.5, p <.001, r =.71) and on subscales for NR-Self, NR-Perspective, and NR-Experience, indicating reduced nature connectedness.
  • Safety concerns, limited situational cues, and reliance on multisensory strategies (hearing, smell, touch) shaped blind participants’ nature engagement.
  • Nature provided emotional grounding, vitality, and companionship, but ecological awareness and agency were constrained by limited access to environmental information.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Provides a detailed understanding of blind people’s sensory practices and emotional connections with nature, which are often overlooked in existing assistive technologies.
  • Highlights the need for assistive systems that go beyond navigation to support rich, multisensory, and autonomous engagement.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Survey: 20 blind and 20 sighted participants completed the NRS, with group differences analyzed using Mann–Whitney U tests.
  • Interviews: 16 blind participants shared their experiences, challenges, and expectations for assistive technologies. Data were analyzed thematically.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Limited to blind participants; experiences of individuals with low vision were not captured.
  • Conducted in mainland China, which may limit cultural generalizability.
  • Small survey sample (N=20 per group) and reliance on a vision-oriented NRS tool.
  • Future work should develop inclusive measures of nature connectedness, explore cultural and contextual variations, and involve blind researchers in the design process.

Summary

This study explores how blind individuals engage with nature, revealing that their experiences are shaped by safety concerns, multisensory strategies, and emotional connections. Blind participants face barriers to active exploration and ecological awareness, highlighting the need for assistive technologies that support rich, autonomous, and multisensory engagement. The findings inform design implications for inclusive systems that balance safety with autonomy, foster serendipitous discovery, and integrate digital and physical pathways for nature engagement. Future research should address methodological limitations, expand to low-vision populations, and involve blind people in co-design processes.