Motivation
In today’s visually-driven digital age, the ability to share and engage with photos has become an integral part of social interaction. However, for visually impaired young adults (VIPs), the experience of photo sharing has been limited by the lack of accessibility features in existing social media platforms. Recognizing this gap, our team at Pictok set out to create a revolutionary photo sharing app that caters specifically to the needs of VIPs.
Our journey began with extensive research into the challenges faced by visually impaired teens in accessing and engaging with visual content. Despite their desire to participate in photo sharing activities like their sighted peers, VIPs encounter significant barriers due to the visual nature of conventional social media apps. Inspired by this insight, we embarked on a mission to develop Pictok, a groundbreaking solution that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to transform images into immersive auditory experiences.
Target Audience
- Visually impaired young adults (VIPs) aged 18-25
Learning Objectives
- Using AI to generate auditory descriptions of images
- Implementing accessible gesture navigation
- Designing an inclusive user interface
Features
- AI Image Recognition: Pictok uses GPT-Vision to analyze images and generate detailed descriptions of the image. After we feed the description into Meta’s AudioGen which generates an auditory based on the provided description.
- Accessible Gesture Navigation: Users can navigate the app using simple swipe gestures to explore photos and interact with the interface.
Retrospective
To reflect on the project I think what we did well was utilizing the power of AI to generate auditory descriptions of images. This was a key feature that made the app accessible to visually impaired users. We also did a good job of implementing accessible gesture navigation, which allowed users to navigate the app using simple swipe gestures. If I were to do this project again, I would focus on utilizing ARIA live regions to provide real-time updates to screen readers. We were using the built in Audio API to play the audio descriptions, but we could have used ARIA live regions to provide real-time updates to screen readers. This would have made the app even more accessible to visually impaired users and we wouldn’t have encounter the issue of the audio descriptions not playing before the user interacted with the app.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Pictok has been a transformative project that has opened our eyes to the challenges faced by visually impaired young adults in accessing photo sharing platforms. By leveraging the power of AI and inclusive design principles, we have created a groundbreaking app that empowers VIPs to engage with visual content in a meaningful and immersive way. I definitely learned a lot from this project in terms of accessibility and inclusive design, and I look forward to applying these learnings to future projects.