Dude, Where's My Luggage? An Autoethnographic Account of Airport Navigation by a Traveler with Residual Vision
Cameron Tyler Cassidy, Stacy Marie Branham · 2024 · ASSETS '24: Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3663548.3675624
Summary
This paper presents an autoethnographic study of airport navigation by a legally blind traveler with residual vision, conducted across eight round-trips through six U.S. airports. The first author, Cameron, who has Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy resulting in approximately 20/200 visual acuity, documented his experiences navigating every stage of air travel — from arriving at the airport through check-in, security, finding gates, boarding, deplaning, baggage claim, and ground transportation. The study reveals a fundamental design tension: airport physical and digital infrastructure assumes total sightedness (small signage, dynamic flight displays, visual-only queuing systems), while assistive services like wheelchair escorts assume total blindness, leaving travelers with residual vision poorly served by both. Cameron extensively used his remaining vision combined with mainstream technology — Google Indoor Maps, Google Flight Widget, airline apps, and his phone camera for magnification — to navigate independently, but encountered persistent barriers. The research documents challenges at points of interest (POIs) throughout the airport, not just between them, arguing that traditional turn-by-turn navigation approaches address only a fraction of the accessibility challenges faced during air travel. Significant barriers included multi-queue systems at check-in and baggage claim, inaccessible security checkpoint directives, dynamic signage changes due to construction, organic queuing at gates, and the social stigma of using assistive technology in public spaces like security areas and restrooms.
Key findings
The study identified that navigation challenges in airports extend far beyond wayfinding between locations. Accessibility at points of interest — such as finding the correct check-in queue, reading baggage carousel numbers, identifying rideshare pickup areas, and understanding security directives — proved equally or more challenging than navigating between them. Cameron was frequently caught between systems designed for full sightedness and assistive services designed for total blindness; for example, co-located assistants at check-in would provide wheelchair escort services he did not need while failing to offer the visual information assistance he did need. The research found that Cameron's assistive technology use was constrained by social factors — he avoided using his phone camera at security checkpoints for fear of appearing suspicious, and felt uncomfortable pointing it at screens near restrooms. Organic queues (unmarked, socially negotiated lines) at boarding gates and baggage claim were particularly problematic, as they relied on visual observation of others' behaviour with no signage or structural cues. The study also documented how Cameron's residual vision was an asset that current AT design fails to leverage — he preferred visually scanning magnified maps and signage over audio-only navigation instructions.
Relevance
This research challenges two pervasive assumptions in accessibility design: that sighted infrastructure works for people with any usable vision, and that blindness-oriented assistive services work for anyone with visual impairment. The vast majority of people with visual impairments have some residual vision, yet AT research disproportionately focuses on solutions for total blindness. The call for navigation systems that center and leverage residual vision — supporting visual scanning, magnification, and visual landmark identification rather than replacing vision entirely with audio — has broad implications for indoor navigation AT design. For accessibility practitioners working on physical spaces, the documentation of barriers at POIs (queues, dynamic displays, security processes) provides a concrete checklist of airport accessibility issues. The autoethnographic approach also models how first-person disability experience can generate rich, actionable design insights that observational studies might miss.
Tags: visual impairment · low vision · residual vision · indoor navigation · wayfinding · airport accessibility · autoethnography · assistive technology