Accessible Travel Apps for Visually Impaired Users

After a long flight, Sarah, a visually impaired traveler, arrives at an unfamiliar airport. With her trusty accessible travel app, she effortlessly navigates through the bustling terminal, guided by clear spoken directions and labeled button prompts. This empowering experience sharpens the contrast between a seamless journey and one filled with obstacles. Travel can indeed be empowering, but it becomes stressful when apps and services are hard to use. For people with visual impairments, a good app can make the difference between a smooth trip and a frustrating experience. Accessible travel apps help reduce uncertainty, support independence, and make it easier to travel without extra help.

What Makes a Travel App Accessible?

A good accessible travel app should include:

Full support for screen readers: Screen readers are crucial for converting digital text to audio or braille, enabling visually impaired users to access content independently.

Clear spoken feedback: Ensures users are always aware of their actions within the app, enhancing their ability to navigate without confusion.

Simple and predictable navigation: Straightforward navigation lets users move through the app confidently, minimizing frustration and helping them focus on their travel plans.

few pop-ups and little visual clutter

: Reducing distractions like pop-ups and clutter enables smoother operation, helping users to focus on essential information without becoming overwhelmed. Apps that use maps without audio guidance or have buttons without labels often do not work well for blind users.

Navigation and Mapping Apps

Google Maps

Google Maps is one of the most accessible navigation apps available. It works with screen readers, gives spoken directions, and offers landmark-based guidance in many places. To enhance your experience using Google Maps with VoiceOver, try these steps: Open the VoiceOver settings, navigate to 'Rotor', and enable 'Speech Rate' and 'Volume'. Then, in Google Maps, go to Settings and select 'Navigation Settings', where you can toggle 'Audio Guidance' to ensure you get spoken directions and minimize on-screen clutter.

According to the Web Standards Commission, Apple provides VoiceOver as a standard accessibility feature on all iOS devices, which helps users receive clear navigation instructions in Apple Maps at no extra cost. Coverage may differ by region, but many users find these accessibility features reliable.

Public Transport Apps

Apps like Moovit and local transit apps can be very helpful when designed well. Helpful features include:

Spoken stop announcements help users to know exactly where they are and when they need to disembark. Clear route summaries provide a comprehensive overview of the journey, making it easier for users to understand and plan their travel.

Real-time service updates

Unfortunately, how accessible these apps are can vary widely across different transport providers.

Booking and Accommodation Apps

Booking flights, trains, and places to stay is still one of the hardest parts of accessible travel. Many apps are harder to use than their mobile websites, especially when it comes to choosing seats, paying for tickets or rooms, and completing CAPTCHA checks. Imagine Sarah trying to book a seat for her flight: she fills out all necessary information, only to be stopped by a CAPTCHA that takes too long to complete. As she struggles with a delayed screen reader response, her session times out and she has to start over. This scenario illustrates a common frustration faced by users with visual impairments—having to repeatedly endure this cumbersome process. If an app is hard to use, trying the mobile website with a screen reader is often a better choice.

Human Assistance Apps

Be My Eyes and similar apps connect users with volunteers or professionals who can give real-time visual help. These services are especially useful for reading signs, using ticket machines, or navigating new places.

Travel accessibility also depends on websites. However, while there have been significant strides in app-based solutions like Be My Eyes, which connect users with real-time visual assistance, website accessibility often lags behind. Persistent issues, such as non-descriptive links, poor navigation structures, and the lack of screen reader compatibility, continue to pose challenges. For instance, Be My Eyes successfully fills the gap by providing immediate help to visually impaired users, but this success highlights the shortcomings of traditional websites that remain inaccessible. Common problems are discussed in Common Accessibility Mistakes Websites Still Make.