INSPIRATION

Growing up with Blind Friends

They’re so independent, I often forget they’re blind. One writes film scripts and songs. Another takes public transport across downtown San Francisco. One “watches” a lot on Disney+ and even lets me use her account.

Mental Health + Accessibility

As my blind friend put it, "We have visual problems and mental problems. We even have mental problems about our visual problems.” Sometimes she finishes her meditation apps with a startle by the VoiceOver bot. Our talks kickstarted this passion project.

OVERVIEW

USER PROBLEM

Counselors Don’t Understand the Blind Experience

Currently, blind/visually impaired people struggle with finding

Therapists who understand mental challenges related to vision loss
Mental exercises (e.g. worksheets, meditations) that are visually accessible

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

Handling the Spectrum of Visual Impairment

Felt is a mobile app that offers licensed therapy rooms and mental exercises. They focus on helping blind/visually impaired people. They must design an MVP that’s accessible to sighted, low vision, and blind users.

DESIGN SOLUTION

Start with a key task, then refine for accessibility

To simplify my process, I focused on users with the greatest accessibility needs, and tasks with the highest business impact. To get started, I focused on designing how blind users may discover and complete a mental exercise from their therapist.

TAPPING INTO BLIND PEOPLE’S DAILY EXPERIENCE

Interviewees from visually impaired community

Responses from Visually Impaired Community

Blindness is a spectrum (e.g. light sensitivity to tunnel vision)
Accessibility Tools go a long way, but products could improve w/ inclusive navigation
Setting new habits involve audio reinforcement over written reminders

TAPPING INTO BLIND PEOPLE’S RESOURCES

Tested Accessibility Tools

I tested built-in screen readers, magnifiers, and filters to understand how they may correspond to apps. Navigating at a slower pace, I realized elements should be minimal, easy touch points. It’s challenging to slide off screen and have too many options.

Design Patterns for Blind Users’ Inclusion

I analyzed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, apps for blind/visually impaired people, and apps with strong accessibility features. I referred to these open notes for the rest of this project.

Scarcity in Mental Health Resources...

With secondary research, I found that blind people’s resources focus more on visual assistance and less on their contextual mental health. This stressed the importance of their access to inclusive tools and therapists.

HUMANIZING THE BLIND COMMUNITY

Personas: Based on Two Conditions

For my personas, I considered their (1) Age of diagnosis (2) Severity of visual impairment. These influence their mental state, and how they’ll use our product.

Persona of Lucia, the The Severely Underestimated, Blind Adventurist

Represent Lifelong Blindness

Lucia's used to navigating life differently from sighted people, and is often underestimated. Her visual impairment is simply a cultural difference for her daily challenges.

Persona of Ben, the Recently Diagnosed, Low Vision Professional

Represent Recent Diagnosis of Low Vision

Ben's shocked at how his life is about to change. His visual impairment is a primary cause in his daily challenges.

In sum...

There are different types of visual impairments, and different types mental needs. Counseling resources should have diverse approaches, since the user’s vision impacts their mental health at different degrees.

Daily Life with Blindness vs Low Vision

To further step into their worlds, I created empathy maps for users with....

No Screen Comprehension

Blind people often sense being underestimated, othered, and/or excluded.

Partial Screen Comprehension

Low vision people have a parallel experience in being underestimated, othered, and/or excluded... but with a diversity of visual needs.

To highlight....

Along with designing a strong information hierarchy for our services, I should permit a broad range of visual customization.

DIFFICULTY DESIGNING FROM A BLIND PERSPECTIVE

The Standard Approach Didn’t Apply

For accessibility, it’s important to start designing for the user with the most needs. As a very visual person, I couldn’t step into the perspective of total blindness and begin sketching. To solve this, I designed for sighted users and iterated per visual impairment.

SKETCHING PER THE ACCESSIBILITY DATA

Simply Scroll + Press

Since blind users must scroll through each element to comprehend what’s on the screen, I aimed for a minimal, vertical design. I avoided placing elements horizontally off-screen, because sliding would make challenging touch targets.

WIREFRAMING PER THE EXPANDED ACCESSIBILITY DATA

Minimal, Enlarged Elements

Following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, I aimed for minimal elements, short captions, and large touch targets. This reduces the visual strain and required patience for users to find their needs.

ADDING THE UI ELEMENTS

Flexible UI for Diverse Accessibility Needs

Since visual impairments have a spectrum, the UI will vary per user’s accessibility needs. The following UI includes high contrast colors. The text boxes are outlined, rather than filled, to achieve readability.

LIMITED TECHNOLOGY FOR BLIND ACCESSIBILITY TESTS

Prototype Didn’t Activate Screen Reader

I aimed to prototype alt text, a vital feature for usability tests with my blind participants. However, the technology wasn't accessible at the time of this project. I improvised by writing an outline of each screen’s alt text, and personally role playing as the screenreader.

FEEDBACK FROM SIGHTED, LOW VISION, AND BLIND USERS

Positive Impact on Access

Blind User --
“It has a good design. It had clear labels and headings to section off the pages. The items were grouped well, so the directions [on the forms and overall navigation] were easy to follow.”

Low Vision User --
“The information was ordered and sectioned off very well. This made it easy to navigate, and find what I particularly needed. The icons also made sense.”

Sighted User --
“The navigation was easy. With the big buttons, large text, and color scheme, it was easy on the eyes. The highlighted colors also made it easy to find target buttons.”

Requests to Improve Access

Blind User --
“On the [form’s] review page, is this text ‘read only’ or ‘select to edit’? Also, for the microphones, can you clarify if they’re to record an audio or to dictate a text.

Low Vision User --
“It has a good design, I don’t have anymore feedback to add.”

Sighted User --
“Since the screens were mostly one color, it was hard to distinguish between objects.”

Revision Priority Matrix of Felt Mobile App

LESSONS FOR FUTURE PROJECTS

Know My Empathy’s Limits + Expand Curiously

Despite my research data being open throughout the project, I’ll never truly know a blind user’s experience. I identified that I had to...

Approach my designs as a sighted person
Step into various visually impaired perspectives, then iterate the visual hierarchy
Accept what I don’t know, and allow the usability tests to reveal remaining pain points

Principles for Accessibility + Defining My Scope

I examined current accessibility tools and how visually impaired people interact with screens. Amid their diverse needs, I identified my scope of responsibility to design inclusively. This entails a minimalist design, consistent visual hierarchy, alt text, and additional labels for clarity.