The Use of “Smart Shoes” To Increase Barrier Awareness in Blind Person

Abstract

This study discusses the application of "smart shoes" to detect obstacles encountered by the blind person on the road. These shoes are designed according to the needs of blind person by adding sensors to the shoes to increase alertness. The barriers that usually found in the road are slippery road, potholes, uphill and downhill road. This barriers cannot detect by the blind person, so that we made this shoes to help them can identify these barriers. Smart shoes was design comfortable to wear for blind person as they needs. In first design smart shoes was thick, after redesigning smart shoes was more thin and water resistent so that blind person can easy to walk. In this research to develop smart shoes, we decided to use research and development and with ADDIE design. The results of this study are that the application of "smart shoes" to increase awareness of blind person against obstacles on the road increases, based on 8 of respondents. Besides that, smart shoes are highly recommended to be an alternative for blind person in walking in addition to using a white cane.