If their full potential is used and all types of users are taken into account, new technologies can become tremendously useful tools for companies. people with disabilitiesto the point of allowing them break down many of the barriers. We have the best example in our pocket, in something as ubiquitous as the smartphone, a very visual object that, however, with the right tools, can greatly help people with visual impairmentsince there are many applications designed to make your daily life easier.
It didn’t take long for ONCE to see this potential, and more than 10 years ago, back in 2012, they contacted a Murcian company to see how the mobile camera could be used to make more accessible environment for blind people. Thus, after years of searching, the NaviLens codes were born, a technology that is revolutionizing the mobility of blind people and which is already present in more than 20 countries.
A much more accessible ‘QR’
NaviLens technology consists of codes that can be read with the cell phone camera -type QR-, but instead of taking us to a web page they give us auditory information, “ONCE contacted us to see if we could investigate how mobile phones could somehow improve the difficulties that people with visual disabilities had in their daily lives, and we found that people with visual disabilities They had problems especially in unknown spacesbecause They do not have access to signagethat’s why we thought of creating something with which, using the mobile camera, you could access this signage,” recalls Javier Pita, CEO and founder of NaviLens.
QR codes seemed to be the best option, with the handicap that to access the information they have you have to be very close and focus on them very wellsomething very complex for a person who does not see or sees very little, “we therefore had to create ones that could be focused from a greater distance. This idea was forged between us and the University of Alicante and, after five years, we managed create code with these features. larger colors and cellswe get it to be read 20 meters away and without the need to focus. We presented it at Tifloinnova, a technology fair organized by ONCE, and it was very well received by users. And that’s where the expansion of NaviLens began,” says Pita.
Currently, Navilens codes are available in more than 20 countries, in public transport networks in many Spanish cities, in more and more consumer products, and there are people with Navilens applications downloaded to their mobile phones in more than 130 countries, as it is available in 37 languages, “it greatly helps blind people to orient themselves, to have real-time information on the service. In Madrid, for example, it is on the entire metro line 8 and at all bus stops. They serve to let users know. where is the stop, what lines run, at what time, the entrance to the metro stationto see if they have to go to the right, to the left… it guides them. And in consumer products, it makes a description of the product, its ingredients… We are also at the doors of pharmacies in many cities… we are in more and more places, because they make signage interactiveand it is very easy to implement, with a vinyl or a poster,” explains Javier Pita.
For blind people… and much more
The main objective of the Navilens codes is help blind peoplewho only have to download two applications NaviLens and NaviLensGo (the latter specific for public transport) to be able to access the auditory information of the codes they encounter in their daily lives.
In addition, they also have a service so that each person, individually, can create and download your own codes and stick them on objects that you use in your daily life.
But, as Navilens warns, these codes They are not only useful for people with a visual disabilityl, “As the NaviLens code works much better than a standard QR code, it is very useful for everyone, its application is universal. Furthermore, as the auditory information it offers is available in several languages, it is useful, for example, for the foreign touriststhat by simply reading the codes of the EMT or Metro stops, they will have direct access to all the information in their own language, and the same for a Spaniard who is outside of Spain, because there are Navilens codes in Japan” Pita says proudly, “a person from Australia, who was of Mexican origin, came to Madrid to learn about the system with his partner, who only spoke English. “She was not blind, but since she had allergies, she used NaviLens to find out which cereal brand products had the allergens she should avoid, because the application directly translated the labeling, which in the supermarket was only in Spanish.”
For some time now, NaviLens has offered a free program to be able to create accessible QR code through its website, “we have launched the Navilens accessible QR code, a code that combines a standard QR code with a NaviLens around. This code can be generated for free on our website, so that, for example, the owner A restaurant that wants to have its menu in a QR code can visit our page and generate its Navilens accessible QR code for free, a code that blind people can accessbecause, as we explained before, you don’t need to be close or focus to access the information.”
A completely affordable purchase
Although, as Javier Pita assures, the NaviLens codes are like ‘a Swiss army knife’, with many uses, he would like to highlight the capacity of these codes to provide autonomy to blind peopleespecially when making the purchasewhich is one of the great pending subjects, “these codes complement Braille labeling, which can only store very specific information because it requires a lot of space, which is why we always say that NaviLens goes far beyond what it requires royal accessibility decree for consumer products”, as it goes far beyond what the braille or a traditional QR, “with these tools, you have to pick up the product with your hand, and no one tells you how to get to that product. And furthermore, you have to pick up a product one by one and read it independently. NaviLens, on the other hand , allows reading from a greater distance and many codes at the same time and we can ask it to guide us to where the product we are looking for is. That is, it allows a person with visual disabilities can make the purchase independentlybecause it allows you to know where the supermarket entrance is, adding a code on the signage helps you move around and know which aisle you are in and, once in the aisle, to choose the product you are looking for. This is already happening in Belgium, where some well-known supermarkets have codes at the entrance, in the aisles, on the products… and they put them right next to the price tags so that they know, for example, if there are 3×2 type offers. “.
However, for all blind people to be able to make independent purchases to be a reality, it is not enough for a supermarket in a country to do it, it has to universalize the systemsomething that the brand insists on, “any organization or business can access NaviLens to make it more accessible, whether it is a large company or supermarket or a smaller one and it would be ideal, because if we want to achieve our objective, which is to universalize the use of Navilens, It is necessary to join forces between governments, manufacturers, companies… so that it was present in all the products and all the stores.
They, for their part, are already making efforts to make this happen, and regularly meet with companies and administrations, “we have a project with some regional governments to make health centers more accessible, another with the Spanish medicine agency so that Cinfa, which is the largest pharmaceutical company in genetics in Spain, has a Navilens code in all its products, we are also preparing free kits for schools… and a lot of other things,” says Javier excitedly.
And, although it may sound utopian, its objective is for NaviLens to expand to achieve, little by little, a more accessible and inclusive world“it would be very beneficial for all people, especially those with visual disabilities, because our objective, which is this technology, is to achieve a more accessible world for everyone. For me it is a pride to say that a 100% Spanish technology is capable of making a more accessible world. accessible and expand throughout the world, from Melbourne to New York through Japan…”.
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