OrderUp: A Mobile Application
Designed to Assist the Visually
Impaired at Dining Establishments
Abstract
Vispan Boocha
Mirabella Olszewski
University of Michigan
University of Michigan
School of Information
School of Information
515 Sixth Street
121 N Division Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48103 USA
Ann Arbor, MI 48104 USA
[email protected]
[email protected]
Purva Kulkarni
James Stanhope
University of Michigan
University of Michigan
School of Information
School of Information
1915 Pointe Lane #203
319 Pauline Boulevard
Ann Arbor, MI 48105 USA
Ann Arbor, MI 48103 USA
[email protected]
[email protected]
OrderUp is an assistive accessibility application
compatible with both Android and iOS accessibility
accommodations for mobile devices. The application is
designed to be utilized by the visually impaired to assist
them in the ordering of menu items at dining
establishments. Many visually impaired individuals
report difficulties when ordering at restaurants, an
activity that they participate in at a sizeable rate.
Utilizing relevant research in accessible user interface
design, the team has proposed a solution that provides
serialized, searchable information in a simplified
navigation tree.
This solution will provide visually impaired users access
to the menu choices at a dining establishment of their
choosing. Once implemented, this solution will have a
higher user satisfaction rate than the use of tactile
language braille menus, the recitation of menu choices
by restaurant staff to a visually impaired patron, or the
use of other digital menu options.
Introduction
As of 2012 it is estimated that there are over 6.5
million Americans who qualify as visually impaired [1].
Due to the nature of their visual difficulties, these
individuals often have difficulty accomplishing routine
tasks. In public situations this is often due to an
assumption of sightedness in the design of the vast
majority of public spaces and private businesses.
There has been attention paid to these difficulties with
the passage and implementation of the Americans with
Disabilities Act of 1990. In particular, the updated ADA
Design Standards of 2010 go into detail to outline
necessary accommodations in regard to tactile text on
signage [2]. However, as reported by the American
Printing House for the Blind, of the over 60,000
students who are eligible to receive free reading
materials that are accessible to the visually impaired,
only 8.5% of these students are learning braille [3]. If
this trend continues, a sizeable percentage of visually
impaired Americans will not be able to make use of the
ADA-compliant accessibility accommodations that are
provided for them.
reported that 40% of the participants’ meals were
consumed at restaurants [4].
Combined with advances in GPS technology, it has
been found that many visually impaired individuals are
relatively capable of traversing the public spaces of
their community. Under the ADA, restaurants are
required to provide an accessible dining experience to
visually impaired patrons through, at minimum, a
verbal reading of their menu options by a staff member
[5].
Some private individuals have advocated for the
increased adoption of braille menus to allow for a
greater sense of personal freedom during dining
experiences. However, due to the aforementioned low
levels of braille literacy among the visually impaired,
the provision of braille menus is not a universally
applicable solution. Menu design and availability is
important as visually impaired individuals cite
inaccessible menu offerings and unhelpful servers as
obstacles to making informed choices during dining
experiences [6].
Solution Proposal
Problem Statement
One major routine task that is not adequately
supported by already established accessibility
accommodations for the visually impaired is the
patronage of dining establishments. In a 2009 study of
the eating habits of the visually impaired it was
To address the issues faced by the visually impaired
during their patronage of dining establishments, we
propose a mobile application design that provides
serialized, searchable menu information that can be
readily utilized by built-in accessibility applications such
as TalkBack for Android and VoiceOver for iOS.
Figure 1
TalkBack and VoiceOver are both accessibility
applications that provide audio feedback when a user
selects objects in a mobile application. Due to the fact
that visually impaired users cannot readily navigate a
2-dimensional graphical user interface, the information
will be presented in a one dimensional manner as can
be seen in Figure 1.
The most basic interaction in both Google TalkBack and
Apple VoiceOver is a single finger tap to select a menu
object. This interaction reads out the content of the
object to the user using the built-in Text to Speech
functionality. An additional double finger tap will select
the object and take the user to the next level of the
navigation tree. In order to scroll through a list of
objects the user swipes three fingers downward.
Figure 2
Upon successful transition to the next portion of the
list, audio feedback is provided, updating the user on
what listed items are currently on-screen. For
example, “Showing 1 through 10 of 78.”
Each individual screen will look similar to that provided
in Figure 1 and will follow a navigation tree as shown in
Figure 2. Information is categorized to limit the
amount of time spent reading any individual category,
restaurant name, or menu item. In particular, the user
must select a food item of interest in order to receive a
description. This is done to ensure that the user only
receives additional audio information regarding the
options that they are considering.
Menu categories are also placed in a hierarchy (as
shown in Figure 2) that follows the traditional order in
which a server asks for menu choices in western
culture.
Design Goals
(1) To provide access to menu information that
can be easily parsed by the visually impaired to
allow for the quickest navigation of an
establishment’s menu offerings while providing
full access to all food and beverage options
Research also has found that mobile and smartphone
adoption among the visually impaired is much higher
than the rate of braille literacy among the same
individuals [9]. This insight led us to the decision to
move forward with the design of an assistive mobile
application for the visually impaired.
Design Process and Rationale
Further competitive analysis was also carried out in
regard to both menu aggregation websites such as
GrubHub and Yelp, in addition to the corporate websites
of various dining establishments. Here it was found
that these menus were presented in a manner that was
difficult for screen readers to interpret. They were
either part of a website design that did not present
information serially or were offered as downloadable
files that could not be accessed by built-in mobile
screen readers.
Our first design explorations began with an analysis of
the necessity and viability of the creation of a digital
solution to assist visually impaired individuals in
ordering meals at dining establishments.
Initial assistive application design discussions revolved
around questions regarding how the menu information
database would be populated and how the information
would be presented to the user.
We began with an analysis of existing solutions, in
particular the provision of braille menus. As mentioned
previously, a very large portion of the visually impaired
population do not read braille. In addition, average
braille reading speeds stand at approximately 75 words
per minute [7].
The team’s original hypothesis was to provide an
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) application to be
utilized by sighted individuals. This application would
allow individuals to scan physical menus and have the
text automatically converted to digital text. This
hypothesis was put forward with the goal of minimizing
the amount of work that would be necessary on the
backend to populate the menu information database.
(2) To provide an accessible digital menu
experience that provides consistent audio
feedback to ensure that users do not get lost
while navigating the application
(3) To provide re-sizeable and easily identifiable
visual text content that allows for easy use for
partially visually impaired users
Slow production speeds have also been cited as a
hindrance to the provision of braille menus [8]. Even if
braille literacy was far more prevalent among the
visually impaired, there would still be a number of
roadblocks to providing proper tactile language menus
to dining patrons.
This solution proved to be unviable due to technical and
social limitations. The team conducted a series of
interviews with potential users of the OCR application.
Users were asked if they would be willing to assist in
population of the database, and a large majority stated
that it would be unlikely that they would participate in
this crowdsourcing effort. Most frequently, the length
and difficulty of the task was cited as a reason for lack
of interest.
Additionally, OCR text conversion is largely not capable
of distinguishing between different headings and
typefaces. Due to the importance of categorization in
dining menu design, the technical limitations of the
technology meant that the database would need to be
populated, at least initially, by members of the team.
This would be accomplished by inputs into a specialized
form.
In terms of the best method of presenting this
information we took inspiration from the interactions of
the built-in Personal Contacts/People applications for
both Android and iOS devices (as can be referenced in
Figure 1. Due to the fact that the visually impaired
cannot simultaneously control more than 1 visual item
at a time, this serialized information system was seen
as one that could be adapted for use in the application
[10].
As the Contacts/People application is one of the primary
applications of both Android and iOS mobile devices the
potential for a built-in user understanding of an
application that mirrors its interface is high. This is
why the team decided to take inspiration from already
proven interface designs that provide lists of
information in a largely serialized nature.
The application was therefore designed to interact as
effectively as possible with Google TalkBack and Apple
VoiceOver with their primary interactions utilized.
Other considerations regarding the presentation of
content were addressed in terms of default typefaces
and the implementation of re-sizeable type for
individuals that possess partial sight. Research has
stated that size 16 Verdana Regular is readable and
appropriate for the constraints of a mobile screen [11].
Incomplete Solutions and Future Directions
In future iterations of the application, voice recognition
software will be integrated to make the search function
more beneficial and to increase ease of use.
The application will also need to explore larger scale
solutions for how to continuously populate the database
of restaurants. This could be achieved by having a
website with a form that restaurant owners could
complete to update their information.
Design Implications
This solution will provide visually impaired users access
to the menu choices at a dining establishment of their
choosing. When implemented, this solution will have a
higher user satisfaction rate than the use of tactile
language braille menus, the recitation of menu choices
by restaurant staff to a visually impaired patron or the
use of other digital menu options.
This is due to the fact that the application does not rely
on the assumption of braille literacy and has been
designed from the ground up to operate as an assistive
technology. The user also does not need to rely on any
other individual’s assistance in order to scan menu
options at a dining establishment. It therefore is
usable by a maximum number of visually impaired
individuals and provides them with a higher level of
autonomy as patrons of restaurants.
[5] Virginia Office for Protection and Advocacy. ADA
and Restaurants. N.p.: Virginia Office for Protection and
Advocacy, n.d. Web.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our advisors in this project:
Dr. Sile O'Modhrain, Associate Professor at the
University of Michigan School of Music
Dr. Joyojeet Pal, Assistant Professor at the University of
Michigan School of Information
Dr. Collen Van Lent, Lecturer III at the University of
Michigan School of Information
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[7] Morley, Sarah. The Design and Evaluation of NonVisual Information System for Blind Users. Diss. U of
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[8] ibid
[9] Kane, Shaun K., Chandrika Jayant, Jacob O.
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115-22.
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[11] "APH Guidelines." APH Guidelines. American
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