Accessible photo album

Abstract

While a photograph is a visual artifact, studies reveal that a number of people with visual impairments are also interested in being able to share their memories and experiences with their sighted counterparts in the form of a photograph. We conducted an online survey to better understand the challenges faced by people with visual impairments in sharing and organizing photos, and reviewed existing tools and their limitations. Based on our analysis, we developed an accessible mobile application that enables a visually impaired user to capture photos along with audio recordings for the ambient sound and memo description and to browse through them eyes-free. Five visually impaired participants took part in a study in which they used our app to take photographs in naturalistic settings and to share them later with a sighted viewer. The participants were able to use our app to identify each photograph on their own during the photo sharing session, and reported high satisfaction in having been able to take the lead during the process.

The Effect of Computer-Generated Descriptions on Photo-Sharing Experiences of People with Visual Impairments

“…People with visual impairments take and share photographs for the same reasons that sighted people do [30,32], however, they encounter more challenges than sighted people both in taking photos and browsing their albums to select good photos [46,50]. Researchers have developed several methods to assist blind photography, including audio feedback that facilitates aiming the camera [32,45], and recorded memos and ambient sounds that augment photos [2,30]. Unlike this prior work on enhancing the photo-taking process, we focus on generating descriptions to help visually impaired people better browse and select photos for sharing.…”

“…Visually impaired people (both blind and low vision) have a strong presence on SNS and are interested in sharing photos [50]. They take photos for the same reasons that sighted people do: sharing daily moments with their sighted friends and family [30,32]. A prior study showed that visually impaired people shared a relatively large number of photos on Facebook-only slightly less than their sighted counterparts [50].…”

“…We show it visually to demonstrate the design.While they want to share photos with others, visually impaired people find it difficult to understand the contents of photos and select good photos to post from their albums [30,47]. If a visually impaired person takes a photo and does not upload it immediately, it is hard for her to navigate through the album and find that photo independently, especially when many photos have accumulated in her album over time.Moreover, it is difficult to judge the quality of a photo, for example, to determine whether the photo is blurry, whether a person has her eyes closed in the photo, or whether the photo is aesthetically pleasing [30].Researchers and designers have tackled this problem, proposing techniques to help people with visual impairments access and understand the contents of a photo. Most of these efforts used human-powered services (e.g., crowd workers, friends) to provide photo descriptions or answer a photo-based question [13,15,54,55].…”

“…While they want to share photos with others, visually impaired people find it difficult to understand the contents of photos and select good photos to post from their albums [30,47]. If a visually impaired person takes a photo and does not upload it immediately, it is hard for her to navigate through the album and find that photo independently, especially when many photos have accumulated in her album over time.…”

“…Moreover, it is difficult to judge the quality of a photo, for example, to determine whether the photo is blurry, whether a person has her eyes closed in the photo, or whether the photo is aesthetically pleasing [30].…”