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Usability of mobile applications for visually impaired people: An empirical study

Abstract:

Background: The use of mobile devices has increased significantly in recent years becoming the main means of access to communication, learning and other services. However, users with different types of disabilities are marginalized from the benefits of mobile technology. Particularly, people with visual impairment face different challenges given the complexity of its interfaces showing that the development of these applications might not considered this group of users. Aim: From this perspective, the objective of this work is to identify the usability criteria that must be incorporated within mobile applications in order to be used by people with visual disabilities. Method: Through a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) to investigate the attributes, techniques and tools for the usability evaluation of mobile applications for the visually impaired. Results: After the study, we identified the lack of formal models for assessing the usefulness of mobile applications for visually impaired people, forcing evaluators to use traditional evaluation models and incorporating usability attributes based on their experience. Conclusions: Finally, we conclude that the poor usability of mobile applications for blind people would appear that obeys to the lack of formal usability evaluations models for this kind of applications.