The BLV App Arcade: a new curated repository and evaluation rubric for mobile applications supporting blindness and low vision

Abstract

Purpose

Visual impairment-related disabilities have become increasingly pervasive. Current reports estimate a total of 36 million persons with blindness and 217 million persons with moderate to severe visual impairment worldwide. Assistive technologies (AT), including text-to-speech software, navigational/spatial guides, and object recognition tools have the capacity to improve the lives of people with blindness and low vision. However, access to such AT is constrained by high costs and implementation barriers. More recently, expansive growth in mobile computing has enabled many technologies to be translated into mobile applications. As a result, a marketplace of accessibility apps has become available, yet no framework exists to facilitate navigation of this voluminous space.

Materials and Methods

We developed the BLV (Blind and Low Vision) App Arcade: a fun, engaging, and searchable curated repository of app AT broken down into 11 categories spanning a wide variety of themes from entertainment to navigation. Additionally, a standardized evaluation metric was formalized to assess each app in five key dimensions: reputability, privacy, data sharing, effectiveness, and ease of use/accessibility. In this paper, we describe the methodological approaches, considerations, and metrics used to find, store and score mobile applications.

Conclusion

The development of a comprehensive and standardized database of apps with a scoring rubric has the potential to increase access to reputable tools for the visually impaired community, especially for those in low- and middle-income demographics, who may have access to mobile devices but otherwise have limited access to more expensive technologies or services.

IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION

• A wide array of assistive mobile applications now serve as low cost, convenient, and effective alternatives to standard tools in the rehabilitation domain.

• Given an extensive (and growing) marketplace of assistive apps, we highlight the importance of developing standardized evaluation frameworks that serve to assess the merit, functionality, and accessibility of tools in respective rehabilitation fields.

• To provide an introduction to a novel resource accessible to the public to exhibit verified and reliable assistive apps for the visually impaired community, especially for those in low- and middle-income demographics who may not have access to common technologies and services.

Keywords:

• Visual impairment
• low vision tools
• mobile applications
• database
• application evaluation metric
• low-cost AT

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.