Able: Vision Accessibility in Retail
Sae-Young Cheon, Nicole Lee, & Mingwei Zhong
Environment drives motivation. When an environment incites positive emotional stimuli, it is only natural for one to seek it out more frequently. Marginalized groups who are unable to be a part of services and products have to take an extra step to adjust their activities and behaviors. Their pain points are slow to be addressed for implementation, as enough profit could be established without investments in accessibility. Yet, what corporations fail to realize is that practicing inclusivity may enhance the experience for all, which is an investment for higher profit and corporate social responsibility.
Picture apparel shopping. While many may consider it to be effortless and even stress relieving, those with vision loss can find it daunting. An activity such as apparel shopping – in which vision is imperative to the experience – is often a very difficult task for those who rely on other senses. In a setting that is meant to promote convenience and stress-relief, visually impaired individuals become dependent, stressed and intimidated because the environment and the service is negligent of their needs.
As design engineers, team Able explores a B2B service concept, serving as a bridge between visually impaired shoppers and retailers. With a strong basis of user research, the team reconstructs the design and perspectives apart from the preconceptions, and tackles the unjust nature of today’s shopping experience. Research in the past and present cases indicate that most retail spaces are not properly designed around the customer experience by prioritizing profit per square. As a result, shoppers including the sighted grew to adjust around the given. To introduce a solution that bolsters the motivation and independence possessed by the majority, the team executes service design, experience design and product design to address the needs of visually impaired shoppers foremost, and also to appeal to the retailers and the sighted.
The solution comprises a versatile scope of products including a mobile app, multisensory magazine, assistive hanger, assistive price tag, multisensory experience, and a pop-up store. All products and experiences are carefully designed to ensure accessibility using credited frameworks and guidelines provided by Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), as well as direct user responses. On a deeper level, Able’s mission is to deliver independence, efficiency, safety and enjoyment.
The driving force behind this project is the three team members’ enduring empathy in people. It is the emotional resonance of the members with users and the endeavor to utilize design engineering to formulate a path to a more ideal shopping experience. In every step of the journey, the team consistently consults, co-designs and tests creations with users to reflect real needs and pain points.
Image
Able is a design agency concept that serves as a bridge between a currently excluded segment group, the visually impaired shoppers and retailers. Able’s mission is to facilitate an inclusive, independent and enjoyable shopping experience.
Item Recognition
Able Assistive Hanger
Digital Experience
The Able mobile app experience is attentive to the users’ shopping needs in and also out of the store. Users seek an efficient shopping flow where they can walk in the store confidently and find products they are searching for depending on their size, budget and occasion. The app features include pre-browsing and reservation for try-ons of store goods in advance of store visit, in-store navigation and item information to remove the entry barrier caused by poorly structured and over-stimulating store layout. The color scheme, typeface and UI architecture were designed referencing the WCAG 2.1 accessibility guidelines.
Multisensory Experience
Referred to as the Multisensory Station, this experience is integral to the in-store shopping exploration. Customers may scan a piece of clothing in front of the color and distance sensors, and depending on the item color, the object plays a color-designated tune. This experience embeds an element of joy by allowing customers to play with sensory responses. To the visually impaired, this allows them to explore the joy of perceiving light and color through hearing, which is often their dominant receptor. This experience is less so about shopping assistance and accessibility, which is already achieved through other Able products, but more so about elevating shopping to a more satisfying and fun activity to counter the common opinion of stressful and intimidating.
Additional Products
Image
When shopping, some of the most critical factors that affect purchasing decisions or even trying items on are the item size, price, along with other information. Users who were previously unable to efficiently collect information may now do so by using the assistive price tag. The Able Assistive Price Tag includes clear labeling of size, price, item description, QR code with link to item information page on Able app, description of the Able agency and contact information. Key information including the size, price and QR code is embossed and braille labeled. The font and color choices of the tag was co-designed with users to ensure legibility.
Image
The experience that demonstrates our products altogether is the pop-up station in collaboration with apparel companies. Designed to curate a linear yet natural pathway, this accessible layout helps shoppers to identify items by different sections. Each section has different flooring material, and in front of the display racks there is also tactile paving to help with wayfinding and object detection.
Image
Taking one step further in providing assistance outside of the store, we designed a multisensory magazine where readers can not only view products in advance, but hear, feel and smell the item and the brand. It has scratch and sniff stickers with curated scents based on the brand identity and style, sample fabric to feel the item, and a QR code to the corresponding item details accessible by the Able app. The purpose of this is to encourage shoppers at home to book an appointment to visit the physical retail based on sample items and to explore what kind of brands are open to collaborate with Able for inclusivity. The magazine can be requested through the Able app, and is designed to evoke curiosity and motivation to make more in-store visits to give new brands a try, as our users tend to stick to one or two stores that they are already comfortable with, but, with our products, we want to encourage otherwise. User testing also proved this design to be effective across utilizing more than one senses.
Image
Onboarding for the in-store experience will be instructed on how to browse the store by a store associate. The tactile map in front of the entrance to learn the store layout and method of exploration. The surplus materials from the pop up store construction will be used to make this map, which indeed will help the visually impaired to identify and remember sections according to the flooring materials.
Video file
The item information page on the Able mobile app works in conjunction with the smartphone device accessibility settings, using the text-to-speech interface. This page consists of item images, in-depth item descriptions including size, price, accurate depiction of color, pattern/graphics descriptions when applicable, material and laundry instructions, related items, and items pair-viewed by other shoppers. All components on the frontend are labeled using accurate descriptions for a systematic translation from text to audio.
Image
The visually impaired tend to be a neglected group because brands can already make profit without addressing them but ABLE agency will be a bridge between them by encouraging companies to take them into account. We aim to demonstrate that acknowledging a marginalized group’s pain points will not only extend the consumer segment, but also increase revenue with more shopping trips, more purchases, and a positive brand image. This for sure would drive retailers to invest in acquiring our products.
- Architecture
- Ceramics
- Design Engineering
- Digital + Media
- Furniture Design
- Global Arts and Cultures
- Glass
- Graphic Design
- Industrial Design
- Interior Architecture
- Jewelry + Metalsmithing
- Landscape Architecture
- Nature-Culture-Sustainability Studies
- Painting
- Photography
- Printmaking
- Sculpture
- TLAD
- Textiles
