Anny, smart guide for visual disability
Mobile app for empowering and assist visually impaired individuals
Main objective
Movil app developed with Anny team, based in Argentina, aimed to enhance the independence of blind and visual disabled individuals. The project focused on upgrading an existing app and integrating it with smart glasses that counts with image recognition, sensors and a microphone. These features allow users to better understand and navigate their environment. By refining the app’s functionality, the solution provides real-time assistance, empowering users with greater autonomy in their daily lives.
My role and impact
Research
Conducted numerous rounds of user interviews with real costumer as well as stakeholders. Run usability test, using all findings and analyzing them into actionable insights for continued design iterations.
Design
Developed key user journeys, flows, and high-fidelity prototypes for the enhanced solution. Collaborated closely with Anny’s CEO and Product Manager to align on product goals and challenges, and partnered with the development team to ensure smooth and efficient implementation.
Impact & Results
Enhanced information architecture aligning its design with user's primary mental models and redesigning two key focus areas: assistance for daily tasks and environmental interaction.
Creation of a new module to support mobility and orientation by teaching and leading the user.
Uncovering the main users
In the initial stage, after several meetings with the client to better understand Anny project, we identified two primary users who use the App. The blind users who are the main focus, and their supporters, such as tutors or family members. We continued by reviewing recorded user interviews provided by the company, gaining valuable insights into their main goals, challenges, and motivations.
We were tasked with enhancing the existing solution and adding a new section called "Mobility and Orientation." Our goal was to make the app more intuitive and provide a tool to increase the autonomy of blind users.
To identify areas for improvement in both the current features and the new ones to be developed, we created two detailed journey maps. One focused on the user’s current experience with the app, highlighting pain points and opportunities, while the other mapped out the desired future experience for the new "Mobility and Orientation" section to understand how it could seamlessly integrate.
In the design phase, we began by redesigning the existing sitemap, not only to introduce the new "Mobility and Orientation" section, but also to restructure the primary navigation and reorganize the main sections for a more seamless user experience to ensure a intuitive navigation. The app was divided into five key sections:
Home: Central section for key actions like assistance, communication, and entertainment.
Map: Real time location and navigation
Mobility and orientation module: A dedicated section for learning and practicing mobility and orientation skills
Contacts: Personal list of contacts for user support
Account and profile: Settings for profile management and configuration
Our next step focused on optimizing the user flow, as the user interface in this case plays a crucial role in ensuring accessibility and ease of use for visual disability users. We generated distinct flows for each section of the app to clearly map out how users would navigate through various tasks. These included actions such as selecting the reading assistant and establishing the connection between the app and the smart glasses.
Orientation & Movility, the new section
The mobility and orientation module have as the main objective to teach the user how to accomplish daily task using the app and the glasses. And the following objective is to work as a market place to get access to accessories or any other product to help the visual disability.
The final step involved testing the new solution to assess how well the user flow aligned with the needs and mental models of the users. We conducted five structured user sessions, showcasing the app to individuals with different levels of visual disability. The sessions consisted of two parts: a hands-on testing phase, where users navigated the proposed solution, followed by a structured interview to gather feedback on their experience. This approach allowed us to evaluate the app’s usability and make necessary adjustments based on real user insights.
Structure of the user interview performed with the group of visually disabled users.
Key Learnings & Recommendations
After analyzing the user test interview, the most important insights discovered were:
The Home section was a hit after the upgrade, because the main actions are easily available, like the reading companion.
Is important to think about the user age and type of visual disability for the Orientation and Mobility section.
It is essential to enrich the activities with positive messages.
Daily task should be consider in the new section as well.
