about
the
visually
impaireds

How they walkHow they make outing planHow they use smartphones

THIS IS THE STREET THEY SEE

Close your eyes and imagine, what if the world you see is nothing but darkness? Well, this is how blind people sees the world. They preceive a lot of things through auditory sense. The noise from the video is how they picture the streets everyday.

  • 2D MENTAL MAP

  • It’s easy for sighted people to catch in 2D map. But without visual sense, it's hard for the visually impaired to develop a 2D special concept. So in their mind, a journey from A to B is much more simplified.

  • LINEAR MENTAL MAP

  • It’s like a "LINEAR process" of moving between spots. Each spot represents a crucial sensory clue. It can be a store, the subway entrance or even just the smell of a bakery shop.

MICRO LOCATION
INFORMATION

When the visually impaired people walk on the street, all the other sense left is how they "see" their way. We asked our interviewees to describe a specific route they are familiar with. And this is one of the answer...

"Exit #1 →
Turn right after few stairs →
Cross an ally, make sure    
there’s no car by hearing the noise →
Go straight, walk along the wall     
to ensure you’re heading straight forward →
Pass bakery shop you’ll smell the sweet bread first →
McDonald’s is right next to it →
7-11 is next to McDonald’s,     
if you hear the doorbell of 7-11   
it means you go too far."    

SELF LOCATING

is the main difference between sighted person & the visually impaired when they walk. According to studies, we perceive 80% of the environment through visual sense. We can see things in a far distance to know the relative position of ourselves.

However, the blinds have to use other senses like hearing or touching to perceive objects “around or close by” them. To conclude, they need micro location information & multi sensory cues as navigation reference. But none of the existing service provide those details.

EXPERT INTERVIEW

From interview with the Orientation & Mobility instructor, we verified that a certain route from A to B in eneryone’s mind is approximately the same. Only the partial difference lies in each individual’s different sense ability. In the journet from A to B, some of the clues are obvious that most of the visually impaireds can notice. These are the clues the instructor would use to guide them.

INFORMATION
SEARCH ON PC
IS PREFERED

INPUT PROCESS
ON MOBILE DEVICE
IS TEDIOUS

Most of our interviewees prefer to do search on their PC since the input process is faster with a keyboard. After searching, they’ll try to sync the information to their smartphone in many ways. In other words they can’t do search anywhere they want. And that’s the main reason why they have to plan a daily schedule before they go out.

VOICEOVER USAGE PATTERN

The visually impaireds use their smartphone by auditory sense. They are navigated by VoiceOver, an iOS accessibility function that reads out every single word and movement on the screen. However, most of the apps with touch screen are not specially made for the visually impaired user. Not to mention they always come with Bad Information Display & Unfriendly Interaction Design, which lead to a very frustrating experience.

2 GESTURES TO BROWSE WITH VOICEOVER

Once the VoiceOver is on, there're 2 different ways to browse the interface.
Each one has it's own advantages and suits different scenario.

  2. DRAG

  3. Move around with your finger always attached to the screen. It gives the blind user a better understanding of the relative position of each UI element. This gesture goes with the scenario of learning / exploring the app. If the buttons and space between is too small, they can easily “touch” the wrong one and miss the target they want.

  2. SWIPE

  3. Swipe right/left to move the cursor. They prefer to use this gesture while walking since it only takes one hand to operate the phone.

PROBLEMS OF VISITING SOMEWHERE UNFAMILIAR

To the visually impaired people, a visit to unfamiliar place comes with 3 stages.
Here is the problem they have on each stage.

SEARCH

All the tools and service are designed for sighted people. The information display usually follows a visual thinking way, which is unfriendly to visually impaired users.

NAVIGATE

Visually impaired people need meaningful, detailed description of the environment when they walk. However, Current navigation messages only provide the name of the road and the distance of the how many meters, which is far less from what they need.

SHARE

After going home, you may want to review the trip today or even share the experience with friends. But to the visually impaireds, there’re just too much to remember along the journey. They don't have a tool that can preserve all those details in an easy way.