It is difficult for blind persons to understand the relationship between themselves and their environment as a two-dimensional map. This paper presents a support tool for protocol analysis of map understanding by blind persons. First, we propose a human understanding model of environments which explains the difference in visual functions and experiences. Then we present a support tool which includes a tactile display and a voice synthesizer. This tool has two representation modes, tactile-audio map mode and virtual walking mode. The results of an evaluation at a school for the blind provided us with some useful guidelines.
