Meeting #1 with the Insight Group: Notes.

Participants – Ishan, Shweta, Manasvi, Zainab, Neha, Sanket, Aditya, Tanya, Rasika, Subir.

A summary of problems mentioned by the group –

1. Public spaces –
   1. Navigation while walking –
      1. Exploration of immediate surroundings
      2. Broader established locations are available through map apps, but smaller areas are not. Especially in India where informal shops are plenty and the backbone of life – these are not on the map.
      3. Dynamic structures, tree falls, road block signs can come up at any hour and any day with no concern for the visually impaired.
      4. Vehicles parked on footpaths could be a major hurdle.
   2. Transport – how to know the bus number, destination and route? Often bus people are too busy and the bus stoppages are too short and hasty that BVI people may not get good answers as to
      their questions. Seating inside the bus may be difficult too.
   3. Traffic signals are only visual (wherever they are) with no audio indication of its states.
   4. Road crossing?
   5. Elevators
      1. do not have announcements of floors.
      2. Do not have physical buttons in modern elevators, they are touch screens.
   6. Cabs – when booked, often the local landmark is not relatable as map-apps may not have a relevant local landmark. Map-apps resolution and accuracy being very poor(~10m), they do not helpful locally. A BVI person has to make external visual cues to cab drivers so that they could be identified from far.
   7. Last mile connectivity is always an issue, the biggest issue.
   8. Restaurants or food at home – hard to get to the desired food, especially using tools such as spoons as spoons can not sense. Food is distributed over a plate, and the plate could be displaced while eating, creating a need for relocating the plate by hand senses.
2. Obstacles on footpaths
   1. Dog poop or any other.
   2. Water/mud puddle.
   3. Surface roughness, potholes
   4. Vehicle prevention poles on footpaths
3. Appliances – complicated remotes with no concern for accessibility.
   1. TV remote – one uses fixed number for accessing fixed channels.
   2. Washing machines – poor interface.
   3. AC – do not touch my remote!
   4. Microwave.
   5. Many smartphone enabled solutions but products must be company specific – for example LG may have a voice activated app that controls LG TVs, the same can control microwave ovens, etc. However if Samsung is another device maker, then another app has to be installed for it.
4. Complaints against existing technologies for the BVI
   1. Smartphones are a great platform. Many good apps, but each is good for something and not good for all. So its very hard to keep so many apps and juggle between them. Ideally, 1 good app, that takes care of most of the requirements is necessary.
   2. Ultrasonics are not very accurate, and often overload the senses by creating additional challenges.
   3. Smartphone apps depend on the internet. When 3G-4G signal is not very good the whole system crumbles down and is dead weight.
5. Suggestions from the group.
   1. Smartphones are great, but they would have been fantastic if a keyboard could be attached to them so all keys and navigation through it would be super stable and reliable.
   2. Blackberry smartphone is the best, because it had a fixed keyboard.
   3. Can traffic signals be converted into beeping, so that pedistrians know when to cross or not?
   4. Markings on the footpath give signals through the feet as to what lays ahead. This could be more standardized and popularized?
   5. For partially blind people, could digital glasses with variable contrast, magnification and brightness settings be used? These could just take the normal image in front and modify is as per needs of the user.
6. Technologies worth looking into for new developers:
   1. BeMyEyes
   2. Google glasses
   3. Bose Wearables.
   4. Aftershockz Bone conduction headphone.
   5. Keyboards that can be attached to a smartphone
7. Individual technological interests
   1. Shweta – online courses and education for BVI community ?
   2. ? Forgot other such avenues discussed from other members. – subir

New Questions:

1. What is the perspective on privacy, as per personal experience?
2. As a visually able person i use subconscious and conscious visual cues to judge strangers as amicable or otherwise, and facial expressions as feedback as to whether what i an saying or doing is going OK with the others or not. How does this body talk happen for BVI people?
3. Hygiene, in personal spaces as well as in public, is a very visual sensory thing. For example, plates they received at the restaurants, tables, chair surfaces, in the washrooms, and so on. How do BVI people experience and feel about hygiene?
4. What kind of work and worklife would you like to have? Have you found it? And what could be the tools, skills and social construct necessary to achieve that work-life situation around you? Where can technology plug in?
5. As humans, we all need our escapades – avenues where we could shrug off our armour and thinking and self and just pleasantly absorb all good things without giving a thought – a space to be. Could you share your escapades, like movies, series, art, music? Do you practice or play – such as sculpture, clay work, pottery, painting, cooking, music making, etc?
6. How do you navigate the smartphone interface?
7. What is the relevance of Braille in today’s world? Do you wish to attach a Braille interface to a smartphone keyboard or is it no more a relevant concept?
8. How do you deal with hard cash, when at counters and stuff? Is there a way to count them, feel them, judge the denomination, etc. is there a technology for that which you use?
9. When you have to write, do you have to speak aloud to a mic? How about vernacular languages? Is there an app for Marathi, Hindi, Bangla, etc?
10. Do you have an actual physical book reader that can read you anything that’s in front of your smartphone camera say?
11. What are the feelings and thoughts when you meet strangers for the first time? Do you think face recognition will help?