Navigating Online Maps with Vision Impairments

Ali Ingersoll

Voice guidance in Maps, built for people with Vision Impairments

Think about the last time you walked to a new place. How many streets did you cross to get there? Which intersections were the most complex? How did you prepare before making a turn? And how did you know you aren't lost?

Now think about making the same trip you were 1 of the 36 million people who are blind worldwide or 1 of the 217 million who have moderate-to-severe vision impairments.

There are many different apps out there to help people with vision impairments such as Google maps, which is rolling out new features every day to get people the ability to receive more detailed voice guidance and new types of verbal announcements for walking trips. There are a handful of other companies who are working tirelessly on making map navigation more accessible.

What are some of your favorite apps for navigation?

Here is an article by Forbes on how Google Maps launched a new feature to assist the visually impaired navigate maps.

Here is a YouTube video Engadget created that explores bringing step-by-step navigation to indoor spaces. would love to know your thoughts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=6DZ8fE-tbaw&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.engadget.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo

Alesha Savannah

Wow! This is pretty cool! Thanks for sharing! I wonder if it’ll tell you if there’s an obstruction or something in the way? Or am i getting ahead of myself in complexity? Lol