Personal Vision
System accessibility feature for users with Color Vision Deficiency.
Category
UI/UX
Tools
Miro, Adobe (After Effects, Illustrator), Figma
Location
Raliegh,
North Carolina
Role
Designer, Researcher, and Prototype builder
Introduction
Teaming up with IBM's accessibility team, led by Alexandra Grossi, we're on a mission to blend emerging tech with inclusivity. With the digital world evolving rapidly, it's crucial to tackle the hurdles facing people with disabilities. With around 42.5 million Americans grappling with disabilities daily, it's clear that existing digital solutions often miss the mark on meeting their diverse needs. This project aims to break down barriers and empower individuals, paving the way for a more inclusive digital realm.
Why Color Vision Deficiency?
With a personal connection to Color Vision Deficiency, I chose to focus our project on this issue. Current software often distorts content without effectively addressing the needs of those with color vision deficiencies. Studies reveal the challenge: there's no straightforward way to enable the identification of specific color wavelengths.
It's crucial to understand that Color Vision Deficiency doesn't mean an inability to see color but rather difficulty distinguishing certain hues. This insight underscores the importance of creating a solution that respects these nuances for equitable digital access.
Focusing in
Regular feedback sessions guided our iterative process, ensuring continual refinement of features. I prioritized inclusivity, aiming to make the features useful for all users, not just those with impairments. My approach also involved considering broader systemic changes to foster a more universally accessible digital environment.
Oliver Hayes
The persona that I focused on was Oliver Hayes, who is a 49-year-old with red-green color vision deficiency. He is a systems engineer at a local bank and a novice photographer. This means that he is consistently analyzing color-critical screen-based content.
Opportunities
- Unaware of his own color vision deficiency classification.
- Struggles to decipher color-coded content.
- Can’t precisely adjust color settings to meet his visual needs.
- Can’t reconfigure those setting on the fly throughout the day.
Personalize
Provide users with the ability to calibrate colors according to their individual perception enhances accessibility and ensures a more personalized interaction with digital spaces.
Configure
Having settings that can be fine-tuned and adjusted on the fly is crucial for users to tailor their experience dynamically. This flexibility allows users to adapt to changing preferences for specific needs in real-time.
Identify
Identifying areas along the confusion matrix empowers users with insight into the performance of classification models. By highlighting specific regions where errors occur, users gain a deeper understanding content.
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The screen colors in the video are changed to simulate what Oliver sees.
Scenario
Throughout his workday, Oliver navigates through color-coded information and engages in a remote meeting. Later in the day, he transitions to his photography hobby.
Color Adjustment
Color adjustment changes color values on specific forms of content that are selected by AI or user-defined. It aims to change colors to ones that are outside of the user confusion axes, which are determined by the color fine-tuning in the setup process
Identification
The identification aspect of personal vision assists the user by providing consistent text-based labels for the color the user is hovering over. It also allows the user to recognize hotspots of confusing color areas and focus on them in and separate hues for easier distinction.
Precision Settings
A big focus of Personal vision was to have precise settings that the user can go and finely adjust to fit their needs and wants. These also are adjustable on the fly by accessing one of the toolbars.
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Looking Back...
During this project, I discovered that enhancing accessibility involves making actions quick and easy, or achievable at a glance. I also learned that accessible design should be useful to all users, including those with typical abilities, and the importance of personalization.