The visually impaired have a lot to worry about. They have to worry about getting around, navigating their environment, and getting things done. And then there’s the fact that they can’t see anything.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy technology like everyone else does—and in fact, it might be even more important for them to have access to apps that make their lives easier. That’s why we’ve put together this list of the best apps for people who are visually impaired.
These are the apps we think you should look into:
Best Apps For The Visually Impaired
There are dozens of apps specifically designed to help people with visual impairments live their best lives. Here are 25 of the best apps for the visually impaired.
Note: While we have some favorites, for now we’ve just organized the list alphabetically.
Access Note
AccessNote is a sophisticated note-taking app designed to support visually impaired students and working professionals. AccessNote is compatible with VoiceOver.
Availability: iOS
Aipoly Vision
Aipoly Vision utilizes artificial intelligence to help low-vision people better understand what’s around them. Users point the app at an object and simply press a recognition button.
Availability: Android, iOS
Ariadne GPS
Ariadne GPS allows visually impaired users to navigate directions using talking maps and an innovative interface. Ariadne works anywhere accessible by Google Maps.
Availability: Android, iOS
Audible
Audible provides a wide selection of audible books, including recent popular titles, classics, and academic text.
Availability: Android, iOS
Be My Eyes
Be My Eyes is an app that connects visually impaired people with sighted volunteers who provide virtual assistance through a live video call. Be My Eyes is available in 180 languages.
Availability: Android, iOS
Big Digital Clock
Big Digital Clock is the perfect time-telling app for the visually impaired! This app tells digital time using the entire phone screen; brightness and colors can be adjusted according to the user’s preference.
Availability: Android, iOS
Blind Bargains
Blind Bargains assists the visually impaired community by providing the latest deals in one place. Users can purchase Braille printers, screen readers, and other accessible products.
Availability: Android, iOS
Blind Square
Blind Square is a highly accessible GPS app designed for the visually impaired. It describes the surrounding terrain and announces street intersections.
Availability: iOS
Color ID
Color ID assists the visually imapired by distinguishing the colors in various items around them. Color ID works by identifying colors around the user and speaking those colors aloud. A visually impaired user could use this app when making clothing selections or to tell if fruit is ripe.
Availability: iOS
Digit Eyes
Digit Eyes was created with the visually impaired shopper in mind. This app reads a manufacturer’s barcode and audibly the name of the product. Users can also record their own labels for household items.
Availability: iOS
Facing Emotions
Facing Emotions is an app that translates seven major emotions on the human face: anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise, contempt into corresponding sounds, this allowing visually impaired users to have a deeper connection with the person they are talking to.
Availability: Android
Kindle
Kindle is an app that allows users to download books from Amazon. Kindle offers accommodations for the visually impaired, including large print and narrators.
Availability: Android, iOS
KNFB Reader
KNFB Reader translates written words into speech or Braille. This app also allows users to easily send and share documents.
Availability: Android, iOS
Light Detector
Light Detector helps blind users hear light rather than seeing it. Users will be able to gage the intensity of light based on how high or low the correlating sound is.
Availability: iOS
Learning Ally
Learning Ally is designed for K-12 students who learn best by listening; this app provides audible grade-level content and is appropriate for both sighted and visually imapired users.
Availability: Android, iOS
LookTel Money Reader
LookTel Money Reader allows visually impaired users to accurately count their money. LookTel works to identify currency and speaks the denomination. This is a great app for blind users who wish to practice independence financially.
Availability: iOS
Magnifying Glass with Light
Magnifying Glass with Light is designed for low vision users. This app allows users to magnify text or other objects up to ten times their natural size. This app is perfect for someone with a mild visual impairment who wishes to read a menu, a recipe, etc.
Availability: iOS
My Vision Helper
My Vision Helper is an app that focuses on the following: magnification, color contrast enhancement, and optical character recognition (OCR). It is also integrated with Apple Speech Recognition, which means it can be operated (almost) exclusively via voice commands. You can learn more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89ZvpP8Oppw
Availability: iOS
Prizmo
Prizmo is a photo-based app that allows users to scan documents to PDF using advanced text-to-speech features. Prizmo utilizes OCR (Optimal Calendar Recognition) and is available in 23 languages.
Availability: iOS
Smart Braille
Smart Braille allows Android users to communicate via an app-version of braille. Smart Braille features two majors, one that allows users to write text in braille and the other that allows them to translate text into braille.
Availability: Android
Talking Calculator
Talking Calculator provides voiceover support to audibly add, subtract, multiply, and divide. This app is useful to both the sighted and the visually impaired and is appropriate for all ages.
Availability: Android iOS
Talking Tags
Talking Tags is designed to help blind users create labels or tags for everyday items. These coded tags can help users select which box to fill when moving or which jar to take out of the fridge.
Availability: Android iOS
Tap Tap See
Tap Tap See is a mobile camera app designed with the visually imapired user in mind. Tap Tap See uses a voiceover function to take photos of any object, identifying it out loud for the user.
Availability: Android, iOS
Visual Braille
Visual Braille is an easy way to learn braille, making this a useful app both for the blind and the sighted. Visual Braille allows for self-paced instruction.
Availability: iOS
Viz Wiz
Viz Wiz allows low-vision users to take a photo of an object and ask a question, which is answered through a series of algorithms. For example, a user might photograph two cans of vegetables and utilize the app to determine which can contains corn and which contains carrots.
Availability: Android, iOS
Voice Brief
Voice Brief reads content aloud, such as the weather, blog posts, or emails. This app is useful for both the blind and sighted alike.
Availability: iOS
best android apps for blind users
For people with a visual impairment, accessing simple information can sometimes be difficult. How can a nonsighted person get their bearings and choose the best route to get to their destination? Or read a document that’s not available in braille? Answer an email from a co-worker? Fortunately, technology keeps innovating: a lot of apps are specifically designed to help blind or visually impaired people in their everyday lives.
Indeed, 89% of them have a smartphone, a tool that truly revolutionizes their lives! If they can gain more autonomy today, it’s thanks to features that are more advanced and accessible to the general public or thanks to apps that are specially designed for them. Blind or visually impaired people who find it restrictive and stressing to get around can now be more serene!
Let’s explore the apps used by blind or visually impaired people to gain more autonomy in their everyday lives!
VoiceOver
VoiceOver is a screen reader that’s integrated into iPhones that, as its name indicates, enunciates emails or other textual messages aloud. It’s up to the user to choose the speaking rate and the volume.
Not to forget that braille also remains an option for those who have a braille keyboard to connect to the smartphone or who just want to write in braille directly on the screen of their iPhone.
VoiceOver also describes all the elements on the screen such as apps icons, the battery level and even in part images thanks to artificial intelligence. All the information is thus accessible!
Artificial Intelligence and Accessibility: Examples of a Technology That Serves People with Disabilities
TalkBack
Android smartphones also have a similar screen reader with TalkBack. It follows the same guideline as for iPhones: reading textual elements aloud, exploring the screen, using braille with BrailleBack… Everything is set for an optimal and smooth navigation!
Siri
Directly integrated into iPhones, Siri is an easy-to-use vocal assistant. For blind or visually impaired people, for whom finding and clicking on the right button can be difficult, using a voice control enables them to save time!
They just need to ask Siri to call a contact, to send a dictated text message and everything is therefore easier!
Google Assistant
Also activated by voice control, Google Assistant has the same functionality as Siri. The user totally controls their smartphone according to their needs: sending an email, setting up an alarm, managing their schedule…
Available on both Android and iOS
Google Maps
It’s one of the most popular GPS navigation apps. Being able to anticipate their route is essential for blind and visually impaired people. And this also applies for other types of profiles in general since people with disabilities use 30% more the GPS on their smartphone than the rest of the population. (Find out all the facts and figures concerning their use of smartphones in our infographic.)
Google Maps enables users to have access to all the real-time traffic information which is ideal when choosing the right means of public transportation!
The app even provides a new feature called “Accessible Places” that enables users to even more apprehend their environment thanks to information concerning the seating plan of a restaurant, the exact location of a building entrance…
The app provides precious help for blind and visually impaired people to serenely get around!
Available on both Android and iOS
Moovit
For those who are used to taking public transportation, this app lists all the possible means of transportation, their itineraries, their timetables and other information on real-time traffic.
The app even indicates the users the names of stops while on the bus, the tram or the subway. This proves to be essential for blind or visually impaired people when voice announcements aren’t activated.
Available on both Android and iOS
Microsoft Soundscape
Developed by Microsoft, this app is particularly innovative since it uses audio 3D technology to describe blind or visually impaired people their environment.
Soundscape enables them to better apprehend their surroundings, to call out intersections and to find their bearings in the city with great facility. And all of that by having their smartphone in their pocket: their hands remain free for their white cane or their guide dog!
Available on iOS
Evelity
Developed by Okeenea Digital, this app is the first indoor wayfinding solution for people with a visual impairment to navigate in complex venues such as museums or universities! Evelity works like a GPS.
Compatible with VoiceOver and TalkBack, the app provides audio instructions to blind and visually impaired people to guide them step by step. People with disabilities can easily find the reception desk or the classroom without needing to know the premises in advance.
Evelity is currently being tested at the Jay Street-MetroTech subway station in New York City!
Other places in France have been equipped with this app to guide blind and visually impaired people: the metro network of Marseilles, the LUMA Foundation and a medical university in Lyon.
Available on both Android and iOS
MyMoveo
We’re once again on the theme of mobility with MyMoveo developed by Okeenea Tech. This app enables blind or visually impaired users to activate connected Accessible Pedestrian Signals aBeacon to know when the pedestrian signal is green and thus safely cross the street.
Users can even use the app to activate the audio beacons NAVIGUEO+ HIFI which can locate points of interest such as the entrances of a public building or a subway station.
Available on both Android and iOS, an update is coming!
Be My Eyes
An app with which users can ask the help of sighted users in order to match their clothes or to know the expiry date of a product. Thanks to an audio-video connexion, users can easily get in touch.
Available on both Android and iOS
Aira
Aira works in the same way as Be My Eyes since it connects nonsighted people with sighted ones to help them in various tasks such as finding the gate of an airport.
What sets this app apart is that the sighted users, called agents, are specifically trained to assist blind or visually impaired users referred to as Explorers.
Although the app can be downloaded for free, users are charged according to the different plans and services Aira provides. Depending on the formula they choose and their needs, the cost can thus be high.
Available on both Android and iOS
Seeing AI
A multipurpose app that permits to read and describe all types of documents placed under the smartphone camera such as banknotes or product barcodes.
Seeing AI even recognizes images, colors and faces and thus gives details on people’s emotions.
Apps such as Seeing AI are truly groundbreaking for blind and visually impaired people who can still see their environment in a different way.
Available on iOS
Lookout
Lookout is the equivalent app of Seeing AI on Android. The user just has to activate their smartphone camera so that Lookout can identify banknotes, objects… Thanks to its Quick Read Mode, the app skims through a text which is ideal when sorting the mail for example.
An app that enables blind and visually impaired people to simplify their everyday tasks and to save time!
Available on Android
We can see that blind or visually impaired people can use a lot of apps to improve their autonomy especially concerning their mobility.
Conclusion
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