Helping Blind People Navigate Indoors

I came across an interesting article in Wired recently about the efforts of a Louisville, Kentucky company to help blind and visually imnpaired people in their city to navigate indoors. Being very nearsighted, it's a topic that I'm particularly interested in.

Access Explorer, a small, young company, faces an uphill battle. Other indoor navigation apps are available. Google is a major player: Venues can upload maps to Google Indoor Maps, which is part of Google Maps, and install Bluetooth beacons or upgraded Wi-Fi access points that let phones triangulate data and help users navigate the venue. Here’s an example. Earlier this year, Google released an app called WifiRttScan that allows venues and developers to experiment with indoor positioning using those upgraded Wi-Fi access points. Apple Maps, meanwhile, has added indoor information for a long list of airports and hotels.

But the indoor navigation apps from Google and Apple weren’t necessarily built with visually disabled people in mind. They don’t have voice-enabled interfaces that regularly announce which direction the user is facing and describe the whereabouts of nearby points of interest (think ongoing signage as opposed to just-in-time turning directions). "There needs to be a user experience that is tailored specifically to a user who is blind; a map without a way to access the information is of limited use," Gaztambide points out. Indoor Explorer has been "built from the ground up for accessibility,” meaning the interface is all about sound rather than sight.

 My pet peeve is trying to find an item in a large store like Home Depot or Walmart. The information about every item in the store is stored in their computer system, including location on the shelf. Why do stores not have an app that lets you search for an item and get the location, at least down to the aisle, or better the shelf, that it's located on?