Abstract: A guidance system is disclosed for permitting a person whose vision is impaired to continuously know his or her location with respect to the boundaries of an area having a walking surface and the spatial dimension of the area traversed. The guidance system comprises a plurality of tactual stimuli having predetermined physical characteristics distributed over substantially the entire walking surface. The physical characteristics of the tactual stimuli vary in a predetermined detectable manner in relation to proximity to the boundaries. The variation in the physical characteristics is detectable by the touch of a person traversing the walking surface. Preferably, the tactual stimuli comprise three sets, each set of tactual stimuli being distributed over a separate portion of the walking surface. All of the tactual stimuli of each set has substantially the same physical characteristics.