Invisible Interactions

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Wayfindr.net is live

Wayfindr is the Open Standard for Audio Wayfinding that dissolves into digital navigation services and the built environment.

Wayfindr helps create experiences that are consistent, seamless and reliable, in turn empowering vision impaired people to move with confidence through their environment – completing day-to-day tasks and exploring new places around the world.

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Real users, real contexts, realtime updates.

We did a live trial of Wayfindr on the London Underground read about it here

https://ustwo.com/blog/validating-wayfindr/

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I thought that I’d open this stream with this project that I’ve recently had the pleasure of working on. We are working closely with the Youth Forum at the Royal London Society for Blind People (RLSB), exploring what it could be like for a vision impaired person using the London transport network in the near future.

Earlier this year the RLSB Youth Forum published their Youth Manifesto, which identified the most life changing priorities for vision impaired young people one of which sparked wayfindr’s development. Being able to travel independently anywhere at any time is a key challenge that vision impaired people face day to day. Be it getting to work or meeting friends, public transport is often the only way affordable to travel; with driving out of the question and taxis quickly becoming a costly alternative. 

In response to their manifesto, we worked with members of the RLSB Youth Forum to investigate ways to make independent travel cost effective and accessible. The challenge we set ourselves was to use ‘off the shelf’ products, compatible with the devices they already use, rather than getting into expensive bespoke hardware development, or speculate too far into the future of what technologies might we use. We wanted to see if we can solve this challenge now.

Read about the approach to designing wayfindr at: 

http://ustwo.com/blog/designing-wayfindr/ 

Find more about the RLSB Youth Manifesto at:

http://www.rlsb.org.uk/youthmanifesto

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As we weave computers into the fabric of our environment and being, we should aspire to create inclusive, trustworthy and delightful products that dissolve effortlessly into our everyday life.

Umesh Pandya

My interests as a designer sits at the cross roads of assistive technology for people living with sight loss, inclusive design, ubiquitous computing and interaction design.

The purpose of this site is to capture my thoughts and discoveries on these topics. You can also find me on twitter @the_uMe