Using VR to Help Train Visually Impaired Users to Aim a Camera

Person with visual impairment using a walk light detector app at a traffic intersection. Left photo shows user holding smartphone, right photo shows image acquired by app of traffic intersection including walk light.

People with visual impairments increasingly rely on camera-enabled smartphone apps for tasks like photography, navigation, and text recognition. Despite the growing use of these applications, precise camera aiming remains a significant challenge. This project explores the impact of virtual reality (VR) exploration in the context of learning to use a camera-based app. So far we have studied this approach in the context of training a visually impaired person to use walk-light detector app at traffic intersections.