Wearable technology for the blind

Preliminary insights into an augmented reality service for the visually impaired.

Background

Revolutionary smart glasses for people with vision impairments.

Aira’s revolutionary technology helps people with vision impairments explore the world around them like never before. With a pair of video-equipped smart glasses and a smartphone, users can connect with a trained agent who can see what they see. This enables them to gain greater mobility and independence in any situation.

Challenge

Exploring attitudes towards wearable assistive technology.

Future In Sight, formerly the New Hampshire Institute for the Blind, invited Essential to attend a demonstration of Aira for their blind and low-vision clients. Essential had previously conducted an in-depth ethnographic study of senior clients at Future In Sight, and took this opportunity to explore further attitudes towards wearable assistive technology. I was asked to gather initial impressions of the technology from select participants.

Approach

A combination of observational and interview research methods.

A combination of observational and interview research methods were employed. Observations incorporated the comments and questions expressed by users during a Q&A session, and a live demonstration of the technology. Afterwards, I conducted one-on-one interviews with three Future In Sight users who had participated in the previous ethnographic study. Each 20-minute session took the form of an exploratory semi-structured interview, and participants were asked questions relating to perceived benefits and drawbacks, potential uses, and general impressions.

Solution

User stories, benefits, drawbacks & themes discovered.

I delivered high-level insights from the research, including a user storyboard, participant interview summaries, primary user benefits and drawbacks, and the identification of 5 preliminary themes common across all participants. Essential’s partnership with Future in Sight expanded into a full research study evaluating Aira’s technology.