Design a photo sharing app for a visually impaired person.

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Design a photo sharing app for a visually impaired person.

Asked at Microsoft over a year ago

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Abhinav Chitre · Answer 1 · 2020-12-31T06:19:30+0000

Clarifying Questions

Is it for a completely blind person or visually impaired person? Visually impaired person.

What is the goal of building this app? Increasing engagement

Do you want to build a new app or improve on an existing app? build a new app.

Do we have any time constraints to build the app? One year

Business Goal

To acquire as many users as possible and to increase user engagement

User Goal

To provide a seamless photo sharing experience to a visual impaired person

Users

Visually impaired persons

Friends who have normal vision

Parents who have normal vision

We will build it for visually impaired persons but make sure that their friends are on the same network.

Use Cases

We will look at the basic use cases

Adding a picture, video, story

Liking a picture

Sharing a picture

Adding comments on a picture

Sending direct messages to a friend

Searching by profile or keyword

Painpoints

They may not be able to capture the moments clearly due to impaired vision and may end up capturing blurred images.

They may find it difficult to use the app due to their impaired vision.

They may not be able to type comments on the pictures or direct message their friends due to their impaired vision.

They may find it difficult to perform the most frequent actions such as liking images, sharing images , searching content by person name or category

Prioritized Use Cases

1) Sharing a picture

2) Liking a picture

3) Adding Comments

4) Searching by profile

Solutions

1) Gesture based actions on the app : swipe right to share, swipe left to comment , double tap to like (same as existing experience)

Trade off - learning curve

2) Audio/Voice input for comments and direct messages

Trade off - not suitable in public and noisy areas

3) Double tap on comment to listen

Trade off - not suitable for privacy

4) Bigger keypad size with CTAs for actions.

Trade off - NA

5) Higher screen resolution to clearly read what is written

Trade off - NA

6) Image stabilization + auto focus to capture clear images

Trade off - expensive piece of technology - image processing
7) image taking assistance with arrows

Trade off - expensive piece of technology - image processing , need for AI/ML

Prioritized Solutions based on impact to user goals

1) Gesture based actions for like/add/share + bigger keypad/tiled view of CTAs/text

2) Image Assistance

3) Switch to audio mode using gestures to listen to comment and listen

Success Metrics

1) Number of user signups on the app

2) % of users activated (added a picture, liked or commented on a picture , shared a picture)

3) DAU and MAU

4) time spent per user session

5) app store /playstore ratings

Santhosh Kumar · Answer 2 · 2021-09-18T20:54:25+0000

Clarifying questions:

I assume the goal is to serve underserved group, thereby acquire new users and expand userbase for the company.

I assume it is photo-sharing app that is similar to apple default ios photo sharing app not the instagram type app. because instagram has lot of additional advanced features such as liking, commenting, sharing, sending message, etc that we can prioritize at later stage.

User types:

Visually impaired by birth

Viusally impaired elders

I would prioritize people who lost eye sight to begin with, later on we can serve the more complicated use case where the people are visually impaired by birth.

Painpoints:

A) Find the photos that they want to share

B) Find the people that they want to share their photos with

C) Receive the confirmation that they shared their photos

Painpoint prioritization

I would prioritize all these three pain points because all are fundamentals for creating the end-to-end photo-sharing experience.

User solutions

A) To help the visually impaired find the photos that they want to share, I would use three resources

1) voice-enable app. it would allow the users to search the photo based on location, gesture, objects in the picture. In addition, I would also build a AI that would descibe the photo in terms of location, gesture, moment, time of the day, date, objects etc. This would help the user to locate the photo.

I would use voice and tactile feedback mechanism when the user selects the photos that user is looking for

2) app that would have screen share facility to connect with loved one or dedicated set of people at help centers. I would desgin it with a screen share feature that would allow the user to give a command to start sharing the app with the loved one who in-turn would help with photo selection. Then the loved one or the help center people can guide with the photo selection.

3) I would create a high-contrast option to help with people that are color blind

B) To help the visually impaired, find the people that they want to share their photos with

1) I would integrate the app with voice-enabled devices such as echo, google home through which customers can select the person from the contacts that they want to share their photos with.

In addition, I provide a option where app would be integrated with the braille system that would have a list contacts names in a braille language that users can select to share the photo.

2) I would build a voice AI to suggest a recommendation based on the photos that are selected, mapping faces in the photo with the contacts

C) To help the visually impaired, receive the confirmation that they shared their photos

1) I would select a classic tactile feedback mechanism to inform the user that transmission is successful.

Solution Prioritization and Conclusion

I would prioritize all the solutions except for intergration with the external physical braille system. Becuase it is a additional device that customers have to purhcase and carry all the time with them, which might not provide a optimal experience for the customers.