Digital Signage for the Blind

Under the "mapped by digital vision" programme, Miranda House has installed 100 QR code acrylic sheets. When a smartphone with a customised app comes within three feet of a code, verbal messages go out identifying the location and giving other details. "If a student wants to meet me, the digital signage in the office corridor gives a warning about the glass door and verbally directs the student on how many steps she should take to reach the spot," said Pratibha Jolly , Miranda House principal. Jolly said the digital map ping programme was un dertaken by Lakshita , the college's `enabling society'."We carry out a programme called `Samdrishti' wherein we guide the visually challenged students and take them around the campus, to Metro stations, bus stops and the university's equal opportunity cell. The QR coded digital signs are an extension of that programme to sensitise the college and make it more accessible to them through technology, "she said.

Shanti Chaurasia, a Hindi honours student at Miranda, said that as a visually challenged girl it would have been tough for her to move around the campus. "But the app installed in my phone is very smooth and through its verbal messages, it helps me whenever I mistakenly go to some other area."

The 18-year-old student said she was trained on how to use the app by teachers who had installed it on her phone when she took admission.

"They took me around the college and with the assistance of the app and the codes on certain locations, I could identify the place and be sure that I was on the right path," she said.

"This is an attempt at deconstructing the notions of disability and bringing a fresh approach to sensitisation of the sighted," said Reena Bhatia, convener of Laskhita.

Bhatia said the mobile app was created by a company, Yes We Do (YVDO) and later customized by the college. "We added all the necessary information about the college and we regularly keep a check on it," she said.

The college, under the Amba Dalmia digital resource centre for visually challenged students, also provides 10 networked computers preloaded with special talking software Jaws, Kurjweil and Safa, in both Hindi and English.

"We have also installed non-visual digital access software on the laptops of all visually impaired students which are also Braille face and Lex scanner compatible.

There are scanners, ebook readers, voice recorders and Braille embosser that converts printed text to embossed Braille dots for easy reading," Jolly said.