Connecting the worlds of the blind and sighted through sensory photography

1. “An image is worth a thousand words”
But what if you cannot see?

2. A mobile app bridging the worlds of the blind and the sighted
through sensory photography.
shamik ray
I See U See

3. 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

4. The Experience of Photography
STARTING POINT

5. INITIAL RESEARCH
_Studying about blind photographers
_Researching on sensory photography

6. INITIAL RESEARCH
_Body Storming
_Video Sketch

7. 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.

8. 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= +

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

10. 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.

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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)

16. 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

17. PROTOTYPES
_Helped me to reach a research question and also to answer it

18. PROTOTYPES
_Tactile pictures/outlines/braille

19. PROTOTYPES/CO-CREATION
_Tactile pictures/outlines/braille
for the blind, getting a sense of what
is in a picture and where is engaging.

20. _Capturing a snippet of audio with a picture
PROTOTYPES/CO-CREATION
preserving the photographic
moment.
!
giving context.

21. _Sonic mapping
PROTOTYPES/CO-CREATION
knowing the extents of picture
behind a pane of glass is useful.

22. PROTOTYPES/CO-CREATION
_A picture with crowd sourced audio tags
rich-descriptions are engaging.
information overload should be
avoided

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

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

25. 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.

26. I SEE U SEE

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

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

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

30. 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’.

31. EXPERT FEEDBACK

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

33. 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.

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