  Access to non-verbal cues in social interactions is vital for people with
visual impairment. It has been shown that non-verbal cues such as eye contact,
number of people, their names and positions are helpful for individuals who are
blind. While there is an increasing interest in developing systems to provide
these cues less emphasis has been put in evaluating its impact on the visually
impaired users. In this paper, we provide this analysis by conducting a user
study with 12 visually impaired participants in a typical social interaction
setting. We design a real time multi-modal system that provides such non-verbal
cues via audio and haptic interfaces. The study shows that such systems are
generally perceived as useful in social interaction and brings forward some
concerns that are not being addressed in its usability aspects. The study
provides important insight about developing such technology for this
significant part of society.
