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    • Case Study: Accessibility Focused Applications

    Owned by Marco Morales
    Last updated: Mar 23, 2023
    3 min read

    The following page explores a handful of accessibility-focused applications to explore the ideas and themes they employ.

    TL;DR:

    Through an initial exploration of a few accessibility focused applications (Natural Reader, SeeingAI, Field Museum for All), a few areas of interest / exploration surfaced.

    1. Exploring how AI / Software might lower the cost of Video Audio Descriptions / Multi-Lingual Transcripts

    2. Improved Font Sizing for Readability

    3. Visual Exploration of Course Structure (as opposed to linear outline approach)

    4. Learner Check-Ins (Progress / Motivation / Sentiment / Feedback)

    There are many other mobile apps that cater to specific accessibility needs, such as those designed for users with hearing impairments, cognitive disabilities, or mobility issues.

    Natural Reader - Text to Speech is a mobile app that converts text into spoken words. It is designed to help people with visual impairments or reading difficulties consume digital content more easily. App Store: ‎NaturalReader - Text To Speech

    • The app has a range of natural-sounding voices to choose from and allows users to adjust the reading speed and volume.

    • It can also read text from a variety of sources, including PDFs, web pages, and Microsoft Word documents.

    Today, it can be costly to generate audio descriptions (especially in multiple languages) to course videos, though this could help non-sighted learners and audio-mode learners still consume video learning content. Exploring how to use AI or other software to simplify associating audio descriptions with videos could be an avenue to explore.

    Relatedly, the use of software to lower the cost of taking an existing video transcript and enabling multi-lingual support is a related way to expand access to existing content.

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    Seeing AI is a mobile app developed by Microsoft designed to assist people with visual impairments. App Store: ‎Seeing AI

    • Some of its key features include the ability to recognize and read text, identify objects and people, and describe scenes.

    • It also has a barcode scanner, currency identifier, handwriting detection, and more functionality as new AI models are built into the application.

    Many views in the existing mobile applications rely on small type as a default compared to most mobile applications, so even though we adjust font sizing with operating system preferences, this can still mean below-average sized text for various areas of the mobile app experience. (Example - Course Home messages, Discussions App actions on mobile, and more)

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    Field Museum for All is a mobile app developed by the Field Museum in Chicago to enhance the museum experience for visitors with disabilities. App Store: ‎Field Museum for All

    • It provides a range of accessibility features, such as audio descriptions, transcripts, and closed captioning for exhibits and videos.

    • Additionally, the app offers interactive maps, wayfinding, and other features that can help visitors navigate the museum. Sensory-friendly maps are also included as part of these tools.

    • The app is designed to be user-friendly and easily customizable to meet the needs of individual visitors.

    • Users can plan schedules for their visits in advance, adding pictures and providing a task list that can be completed as people progress through their visit.

    • Nonverbal users can rely on visual cues in the application to communicate needs, including the need to go to a bathroom, find food, express nervousness, thirst, or other emotions.

    Visual exploration of course structures is an idea that has been explored by many courses, and the ability to support rich conceptual course maps on mobile is an interesting possibility. You might zoom / scroll/pan around a learning outline, a radical departure from the course outline listing paradigm we have today as our default navigation. How to do this broadly / easily across courses is of course a challenge but something to explore.

     

    The idea of checking in with mobile learners as they progress through a course to capture learning sentiment or feedback is also something that could be more easily added to courses and the mobile experience as well. Perhaps prompting learners to share their learning environment / desk / other setups with others could be a way to connect someone’s mobile learning journey to their physical surroundings?

    References

    The Keyword - Accessibility Toolkit