“An image is worth a thousand words”

But what if you cannot see?

A mobile app bridging the worlds of the blind and the sighted through sensory photography.

shamik ray

I See U See

An Image

What role does an image play at a societal level?What are the ways it helps people find a voice/identity?

Can the image be the container of other data?What new possibilities does this entail?

How does the act of ‘making an image’ make a person more creative/expressive?What might happen if we handed cameras to people generally not associated with them (like the blind) ?

STARTING POINT

The Experience of Photography

STARTING POINT

INITIAL RESEARCH

_Studying about blind photographers _Researching on sensory photography

INITIAL RESEARCH

_Body Storming _Video Sketch

INITIAL RESEARCH

_Building a relationship with the Institute of Blind and Partially Sighted (IBOS) in Hellerup, Copenhagen.

There are enough assistive gadgets. Try to create a common ground.

RESEARCH QUESTION

How might we use the qualities of the ‘experience of photography’ to create a common ground between the blind and the sighted?

experience of photography

photographic moment

photographic product= +

CONCEPTS

_46 Concepts from brainstorm _Evaluation based on tech vs social factors. _Use existing technology. Have high social quotient.

THE CONCEPT

_A way to share unique ways of ‘looking’ at the world. _Building a dialogue through simple interaction rules. _Using the frameworks of social media.

DEEP DIVE

_Understanding what is important for the blind when it comes to sharing experiences, documenting events or just being creative.

Osman (blind since birth) trying out a real cam for the first time

DEEP DIVE

_Understanding what is important for the blind when it comes to sharing experiences, documenting events or just being creative.

Søren's (partially sighted) weaving station through his Nokia

DEEP DIVE

Why photography and photographs?

“I might not be able to see but I have got feedback when there was a certain picture on my desktop and people commented thats a nice picture you have there.”

Susanne

Susanne(blind from birth) trying to capture a photo near the bird cage

DEEP DIVE

Why existing smartphones over a new gadget?

“I already have enough devices to carry around…the iPhone makes no distinction between me and the sighted”

Søren

Søren (partially sighted) clicking the roses among fallen leaves

DEEP DIVE

_On use of social networks and the question of inclusive vs exclusive

Going for one of the many photo-walks with the team.

“They don’t want to use a social network for the blind. They want to use Facebook.”

Anna (Activity Manager)

DEEP DIVE

“An advantage of an app like Be My Eyes is that you don’t have to always depend on somebody you know. I don’t have to think about whether I am disturbing somebody.”

Susanne

_On the role of the community to help the blind online.

Susanne and Dan: Met over email, fell in love over Skype

PROTOTYPES

_Helped me to reach a research question and also to answer it

PROTOTYPES

_Tactile pictures/outlines/braille

PROTOTYPES/CO-CREATION

_Tactile pictures/outlines/braille

for the blind, getting a sense of what is in a picture and where is engaging.

_Capturing a snippet of audio with a picture

PROTOTYPES/CO-CREATION

preserving the photographic moment. !

giving context.

_Sonic mapping

PROTOTYPES/CO-CREATION

knowing the extents of picture behind a pane of glass is useful.

PROTOTYPES/CO-CREATION

_A picture with crowd sourced audio tags

rich-descriptions are engaging.

information overload should be avoided

PROTOTYPES

_Setting up a Facebook page to see acceptance and participation _Being the service!

PROTOTYPES

_Setting up a Facebook page to see acceptance and participation _Being the service!

I SEE U SEE

+

+

a picture is clicked

an audiosnippet recorded

picture + audiosnippet = picsnip

the sighted community tags while listening to unique descriptions

picsnips gets uploaded to cloud

picsnip+spatial descriptive tags

a sense of the picsnip can be made by running fingers over it.

I SEE U SEE

USER INTERFACE

_The app shapes the UI after reading the accessibility state of the device. _Use of appropriate audio and haptic feedback. _Intuitive gestures

USER INTERFACE

_The app shapes the UI after reading the accessibility state of the device. _Use of appropriate audio and haptic feedback. _Intuitive gestures

USER INTERFACE

_The app shapes the UI after reading the accessibility state of the device. _Use of appropriate audio and haptic feedback. _Intuitive gestures

VALUE

An inclusive tool for sharing unique points of view.

Picsnip: new format to play with and use creatively.

Potential in education and story-telling.

The new ‘one good deed a day’.

EXPERT FEEDBACK

DEMO

_A working prototype made for Android platform. _Can work between devices and syncs using cloud services. !

FURTHER

!www.facebook.com/iseeuseepage !ciidfinale.tumblr.com

Involve more sighted people and build an initial community. !Keep improving the app. !Work on learning features like pushing descriptions according to a person’s likes.

THANKS

IBOS Birgit Christensen Anna Grabowski !Susanne Peter Osman Søren Dan !CIID Each and every one !processing.org