Making Everyday Objects More Inclusive: A Case Study via Remote Participatory Design

Interacting with everyday objects remains a challenge for blind and visually impaired people who rely on assistive technology. This study investigates how to exploit Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to make everyday objects more accessible for people with visual disabilities, and help create a more inclusive society. A participatory design process including five blind and two visually impaired users was carried out in Italy, exploiting video conferencing tools with the aim of increasing the usability of everyday objects, based on visual interfaces, usually poorly accessible to sightless people. As a case study, a well-known traditional paper-based calendar was selected, since it is a very popular object used at home, at work and in social life. Although digital calendars are very popular nowadays, a tangible paper-based calendar may be more suitable or preferred by users, in specific contexts. Due to people’s various needs and preferences, a set of suggestions emerged from this valuable experisence in co-design sessions with technical teams and end users, which can be applied in other contexts where additional information is required .