Navigation App for the Visually Impaired

Hilight

The Hilight app is designed to support blind and visually impaired people when on the go. According to a survey among blind people, the most difficult and dangerous navigation stages for them are crosswalks, traffic lights and vehicles. Using an artificial neural network, the app recognises these objects in real time and can, for example, read the numbers and destinations of busses. It announces the direction to the navigation objects using VoiceOver or TalkBack and indicates the distance to them via acoustic signals. The user interface has been tailored to the visually impaired in that it provides a colour-blind mode or a large font mode with words as used on road signs that are easy-to-understand in multiple languages. The app can be used without holding the phone in hand, since a pair of complementary glasses equipped with a camera can communicate with it via Bluetooth. The result is a tool that makes moving around the city in the daily life of visually impaired people easier and safer.

Statement by the Jury

The Hilight app for visually impaired people is an absolutely outstanding project. The support that it offers acoustically or in large letters is not only thoughtfully researched and designed, it also makes the app easy and highly practical to use. In addition, it also impresses with its clear, consistent and user-friendly design that is tailored precisely to the needs of those affected.

Red Dot: Best of the Best

Credits

University:

British Higher School of Art & Design, Moscow, Russia
Design:

Artem Nekrasov, Vitaliy Korolev
Design Support:

Sergey Galtsev, Pavel Popko, Uliana Kovalenko, Ekaterina Zhokhova, Anton Vdovichenko, Olga Moiseeva, Yuliya Kritskaya, Michail Dubovik