"We are at the mercy of others' opinion": Supporting Blind People in Recreational Window Shopping with AI-infused Technology
Rie Kamikubo, Hernisa Kacorri, Chieko Asakawa
TL;DR
This work tackles the challenge of making recreational window shopping accessible to blind people by conducting a two-phase formative study with 18 participants (focus groups and interviews) to extract information needs and preferred notification modalities. The findings reveal a strong desire for push promotions about window displays and selective pull details for shops of interest, with substantial customization based on mobility aids and crowd presence. The authors translate these requirements into design implications for two AI-infused guidance systems, NavCog (turn-by-turn navigation) and Cabot (a navigation robot), outlining information rendering and interaction strategies to support exploration and serendipitous discovery in shopping malls. The study highlights not only technical implications but also social considerations, such as reducing the dependence on sighted assistance and addressing 'sighted people interference,' and discusses opportunities to incorporate generative AI for richer, context-aware descriptions of POIs and displays. Overall, the work advances inclusive in-person recreation by informing AI-based guidance design that supports independent, opportunistic shopping experiences for blind users in public spaces.
Abstract
Engaging in recreational activities in public spaces poses challenges for blind people, often involving dependency on sighted help. Window shopping is a key recreational activity that remains inaccessible. In this paper, we investigate the information needs, challenges, and current approaches blind people have to recreational window shopping to inform the design of existing wayfinding and navigation technology for supporting blind shoppers in exploration and serendipitous discovery. We conduct a formative study with a total of 18 blind participants that include both focus groups (N=8) and interviews for requirements analysis (N=10). We find that there is a desire for push notifications of promotional information and pull notifications about shops of interest such as the targeted audience of a brand. Information about obstacles and points-of-interest required customization depending on one's mobility aid as well as presence of a crowd, children, and wheelchair users. We translate these findings into specific information modalities and rendering in the context of two existing AI-infused assistive applications: NavCog (a turn-by-turn navigation app) and Cabot (a navigation robot).