Design and evaluation of mobile sensing technologies for identifying medicines by people with visual disabilities

What is it about?

Total or partial visual loss in a person causes functional disabilities that limit and restrict their participation and performance in daily activities, interfering with their independence, autonomy and quality of life. Normally, people with visual disabilities have great difficulty in identifying information, either in a bottle or package of a medicine. As a result, many of them need the help of a third party to discern which medicine they should take. In this perspective, the aim of this study was to assist people with visual disabilities to identify their medicine by using perception and sensing technologies. We developed three versions of a mobile application, using technologies such as Near Field Communication, QR Code and Magnetic Field for drug identification. We performed a usability evaluation of these applications with users who are blind. Preliminary results show user preference for the Near Field Communication approach and reinforce some known drawbacks concerning the use of QR Code by people with visual disabilities.

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