A Study of Digital Appliances Accessibility for People with Visual Disabilities

TL;DR

This study investigates the accessibility challenges faced by visually impaired users with home appliances and offers design guidelines to improve tactile and auditory interfaces for better usability.

Contribution

It provides empirical data on usability issues and proposes specific design guidelines for accessible appliance interfaces for visually impaired users.

Findings

Visual-only information causes accessibility issues.

Tactile and auditory feedback are often indistinguishable.

Guidelines improve appliance accessibility for visually impaired users.

Abstract

This research aims to find where visually impaired users find appliances hard to use and suggest guideline to solve this issue. 181 visually impaired users have been surveyed, and 12 visually impaired users have been selected based on disability cause and classification. In a home-like environment, we had participants perform tasks which were sorted using Hierarchical task analysis on six major home appliances. From this research we found out that home appliances sometimes only provide visual information which causes difficulty in sensory processing. Also, interfaces tactile/auditory feedbacks are the same making it hard for people to recognize which feature is processed. Blind users cannot see the provided information so they rely on long-term memory to use products. This research provides guideline for button, knob and remote control interface for visually impaired users. This information will be helpful for project planners, designers, and developers to create products which are accessible by visually impaired people. Some of the features will be applied to upcoming home appliance products.