Empowering the Blind: Tips for Designing Inclusive User Interfaces

Helping the blind navigate the digital world

Imagine you’re running late for an important meeting and need to book a cab using a ride-sharing app. Now, close your eyes and try to navigate and book a ride without relying on your sight. Did you find it difficult to locate the pick-up location and choose the type of vehicle you needed? What was the experience like for you?

For me, the once-familiar screen suddenly became a maze of obstacles and dead ends. For sighted people, navigating the digital world is second nature. But for the blind, every click and keystroke presents a unique challenge.

Put yourself in the shoes of Chris, a visually impaired person who lost 95% of her eyesight to glaucoma. When Chris uses a ride-sharing app, she struggles to use smartphone gestures (tapping, swiping etc) to pin the exact pick up location. That’s because even the slightest finger movement can lead to an incorrect pick-up spot. While sighted users can effortlessly track their driver’s location on-screen, Chris must rely on audio cues and her screen reader to follow the ride’s progress. And just when she thinks she’s caught up, an ad interrupts, drowning out her screen reader’s voice and making it harder to catch important details like taxi numbers.

In today’s world, technology continues to increasingly play a significant role in our daily lives. However, for the visually impaired, technology can often be a barrier to participation in society. As designers of digital interfaces, we have a unique opportunity to make a positive impact in the lives of the visually impaired. Our designs can be a bridge — rather than a barrier — towards inclusion.

Understanding Visual Impairment

Before we dig deeper, let’s explore the current state of visual impairment in Singapore. Visual impairment is a broad term that encompasses various degrees of vision loss, ranging from partial sight loss to complete blindness. It affects a significant portion of Singapore’s population, with vision disorders being the fourth leading cause of disease burden in the country. [1]

How the blind adapt with technology

Fortunately, there are technologies available that can assist the blind in using digital interfaces such as voice assistants, configurable settings such as screen readers, dark mode, magnifications and high contrast options for mobile users.

Built-in screen readers, such as VoiceOver for Apple and TalkBack for Android, can read aloud the text displayed on the screen.

Voice assistants such as Siri and Google Assistant can also help users interact with digital interfaces through voice recognition, providing a hands free experience

But the question remains: Are these technologies enough to create digital interfaces that are truly inclusive for the blind community? We went to full-on research mode to find the answer!

Research method 1: The art of body storming

In design thinking, it is common practice to research and empathise with the users before ideating on design solutions.

Design thinking process by Interaction Design Foundation [2]

In our quest to design more inclusive interfaces, we knew we had to put ourselves in the shoes of the blind. So our team at 55 Minutes experimented with body storming [3] — an empathy-driven UX research technique where researchers physically immerse themselves in the users’ environment to stimulate their experiences and explore potential solutions.

The challenge: book a 1.2km ride from Dhoby Ghaut back to our office at River Valley Road using a ride-sharing app, without relying on sight. So, how did we fair?

Body Storming Exercise: Team at 55mins try the booking app without relying on our sight

Even with screen readers guiding us on the app through verbal cues, we fumbled our way through the process. We mistyped the address a few times, struggled to select pickup and drop-off locations, and were bombarded by annoying ads at every turn. Refusing to be stranded in the middle of the city, we persisted and were determined to see it through to the end. With a bit of help and some sneaky peeking, we managed to arrive at our destination.

The body storming exercise was a real eye-opener for our team. It shed light on the many hurdles blind people must overcome while navigating technology to complete daily tasks that sighted people often take for granted.

Research method 2: User interview

To ensure that our findings were aligned with the lived experiences of the blind, we took the next step and spoke directly with two members of the blind community — Sylvia in Australia and Chris in Singapore.

Here’s a snippet of what we’ve learnt from them:

• The blind prefer the iPhone: At least that was true for both Sylvia and Chris who prefer to use iPhone over Android. They find the iPhone to be more user-friendly and accessible for blind users.
• Guided instructions must be clear: Apps need to provide clear step-by-step instructions so that users are able to understand their options and can respond accordingly. Clear instructions help users understand how to interact with different elements, make choices, and respond to prompts accurately.
• Interruptions are a hindrance: For the blind, interruptions can be more than just a nuisance; they can be a major hindrance. Incoming messages, notifications and advertisements make it challenging for them to access and absorb the information they need through screen readers.
• Voice assistance could benefit from further improvements: Opinions on voice assistants vary widely among users like Sylvia and Chris. While Sylvia relies on Siri as her trusted companion when navigating her phone, Chris, on the other hand, finds voice assistants a little less helpful, describing Siri as silly. However, there is always room for improvement with this evolving technology. One emerging area of development is natural language processing (NLP) [4], which would allow voice assistants to better understand complex commands and questions. Improvements in NLP could lead to a more personalised experience by identifying and adapting to users’ speech patterns and preferences, such as accent and tone of voice.

The accessible design guideline

The good news is that incorporating accessible design practices into your next project isn’t as challenging as you might think.

Here are some of the things we’ve learned from our research that will help:

• Check your colour and contrast: When designing, check the contrast of your designs using these free tools. WebAIM: Contrast Checker, Colour Contrast Checker
• Allow for scalable type: Ensure that the app allows for text enlargement
• Provide descriptive labels for UI elements such as buttons: Visually impaired users should not encounter “Unlabelled Detected” when browsing through the app through screen readers
• Provide alt text for multimedia content: Add descriptive text for images and videos to aid the blind and provide verbal context

(More info here: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines — Wikipedia)

In addition to these practices, it’s important to involve people with disabilities in the research and product testing phases for their insights and feedback. There’s nothing like honest feedback on the product from the end users themselves! They will help you identify and address any accessibility issues before the product is released to the public.

Remember, accessible design benefits not only blind users but all users, including you. Happy designing!