FingerReader

We believe smart devices should be more inclusive, and assistive devices deserve more design and innovation. The low demand for assistive devices has led to high cost and little innovation. While mobile phones have gotten smarter with each passing day, assistive devices like the white cane for the blind, has pretty much remained the same all these years.

In our previous work, we have created a FingerReader-v0 (Finger-worn Assistive Augmentation) with the vision of empowering and enabling people with visual impairments. With FingerReader, blind users are able to simply point at products, text phases etc. and have the results spoken back to them. Our findings suggest that a direct mapping could greatly improve interaction (e.g. easy “re-reading”), as well as scaffold the mental model of a text document effectively, avoiding “ghost text”.

With FingerReader, we aim to transform this proof of concept project into an affordable everyday product that will sustainably change how the visually impaired community can independently access information on the go.