A Flutter-Firebase app to create a more inclusive and safer payment journey for the blind and visually-impaired community in Singapore. Also submission for Google Solution Challenge 2022.
The app aims to assist the lives of those who are visually impaired. One of the key areas was that given our audience was blind, they will not be able to fully understand the positioning and/or identifying the different buttons to press (and their respective functionalities). Hence, navigation icons are placed in a position that is easy to follow and click (for instance, bottom-right corner for more important functions). Each also performs tasks via different activation ways, some depending on duration of button-pressed, where others rely on double-taps. For easier accessibility, we also ensure that most widgets in the application have a text-to-speech function so the marginalised community can always confirm any buttons before committing to the action.
The main feature lets the target audience know what they are “looking” at via the scanning (image-to-text) and text to speech functions. In addition, the integration of payments would allow our audience to access popular online payment options with a visually-impaired extension-help to it. These features would minimise the gap for the blind community to make proper and safe purchases. Finally, the addition of a find-nearby-volunteers feature will act as a safety-net for the visually impaired to seek proper help on areas that our application does not cover.
Ultimately, this blind-friendly and accessible app helps the visually-impaired community access online payment solutions and make safer transactions.
- Online Payment services/options (Stripe, etc)
- OCR Scanner and Reader (Image-to-text)
- Find nearby Volunteers
- Text-to-speech features on most important widgets for better navigation
- Optimum widgets' placement