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Given the challenges of wayfinding in large indoor built environments, especially for persons with disabilities (PWDs), a new class of accessible technologies called built environment accessible technologies (BEAT) are being developed. Such technologies are envisioned to help achieve product and opportunity parity for PWDs. The impact and adoption of these BEATs depends largely on clear and quantifiable (tangible and intangible) economic benefits accrued to the end-users and stakeholders. This paper describes the results of a survey conducted to measure potential benefits in terms of quality of life and quality of work life (work productivity) by increased accessibility provisions within built environments as it relates to navigation for PWDs and those without disabilities. Results of this work indicate that BEATs have the greatest potential to improve mobility and exploratory activities for people with disabilities, exploratory activities for people without disabilities, and improve job security for everyone. 

Assistive technologies (ATs) are commonly used to improve the quality of life of persons with disabilities. While their utility to a person is usually clear, their cost-effectiveness or economic value is often unclear. There are no tools for specifically assessing the cost-effectiveness of an AT. Such cost effectiveness analysis is often important in workplace contexts where an employer or other agencies are responsible for providing accommodations. In this paper a tool called Quality-Adjusted Work-Life Years (QAWLY) is introduced to measure how cost-effectiveness of AT can be assessed including considerations of extended work-life and improved quality/productivity at work. Case studies are presented that showcase how QAWLY can be used to provide economic data points to be used for decision making involving AT. 

Traditionally, there have been few options for navigational aids for the blind and visually impaired (BVI) in large indoor spaces. Some recent indoor navigation systems allow users equipped with smartphones to interact with low cost Bluetooth-based beacons deployed strategically within the indoor space of interest to navigate their surroundings. A major challenge in deploying such beacon-based navigation systems is the need to employ a time and labor-expensive beacon planning process to identify potential beacon placement locations and arrive at a topological structure representing the indoor space. This work presents a technique called IBeaconMap for creating such topological structures to use with beacon-based navigation that only needs the floor plans of the indoor spaces of interest.