Open the e-commerce platform, the colorful product interface attracts consumers to click to browse and place orders to buy, ordinary people only need dozens of seconds to complete the shopping behavior, but the visually impaired need to spend more time. The product description is incomplete, and the pure picture product introduction makes it impossible for the visually impaired to directly obtain more product information through screen reading... In order to further eliminate the obstacles to online shopping, some visually impaired people have set up volunteer service teams to provide free shopping guide services in the form of WeChat groups, and some companies have launched Care+ barrier-free companion service, which also calls for more people to pay attention to helping the visually impaired groups and making efforts for the visually impaired to better integrate into social development.
Visually impaired friends appreciate works by touching the Braille on the works. Data chart Nandu reporter Chen Hui photographed
volunteer
A team of 55 people was set up to provide oral shopping guides for the visually impaired
"Because my lover and I are visually impaired, I will encounter a lot of difficulties when I look at the details of the products during the shopping process, and I always think that one day I can dictate shopping like an oral video about a movie." 」 Xu Jian, a post-80s visually impaired person, was blinded by an eye disease at the age of 10. After graduating from the School of Special Education of Changchun University in 2004, majoring in music performance, she tried a variety of jobs as a kindergarten teacher and vocal actor.
Xu Jian said that relying on the development of high technology, the life of the visually impaired is more convenient, the quality of life has also been improved, and the gap with ordinary people is shortening. However, in the process of the rapid development of information technology, the details of the app platform are not handled in place, so there are still many obstacles in the use of visually impaired people.
Xinhua News Agency photo, Ma Yifei used a Braille mobile phone in the dormitory to listen to messages from her mother.
At the beginning, Xu Jian completed the shopping with the assistance of his family, but it was inevitable that it was inappropriate to return and exchange. So Xu Jian came up with an idea to provide barrier-free shopping services for the visually impaired. Subsequently, she began to mobilize the volunteer group around her in 2020, and relied on the "visually impaired" public account platform to provide visually impaired people with "Watch Le buy" volunteer services, she hopes that visually impaired people can enjoy online shopping happily.
In order to let volunteers further understand the needs of the visually impaired, Xu Jian will train volunteers before officially launching the service, "We will try to let volunteers not copy advertising words or adjectives, but objectively describe." Xu Jian said that the so-called objective introduction may have some subjective factors, but as long as volunteers can introduce products according to the actual situation, the deviation will not be too large.
Volunteers answer the shopping needs of the visually impaired online, and describe the relevant product information in text, so that the visually impaired can further understand the product situation.
Xu Jian introduced that at present, the volunteer team size is about 55 people, of which about 5-6 are core volunteers. "When the visually impaired needs volunteers to help answer their shopping needs, they will send information in the group, waiting for volunteers to answer, and if they have any questions, they can communicate online at any time." We currently have seven communities with about 400 people in each group, and some of the needs of the visually impaired may not necessarily be posted in the shopping group, and volunteers can help them online at any time. ”
In addition to the basic information of the product, the content of "Oral Shopping" is meticulous, and it also contains reviews, which is convenient for the visually impaired to further identify whether the product is suitable for purchase.
In addition to providing shopping services, the platform will also launch oral video content based on current hot topics such as the Winter Olympics, and volunteers will assist in writing, editing, typesetting and recording. They are helping visually impaired people to remove barriers and integrate into society.
enterprise
"Barrier-free companion shopper" enhances the shopping experience of the visually impaired
In addition to volunteer services, some companies have also begun to launch the "barrier-free escort" service. Recently, Procter & Gamble, together with the China Foundation for the Development of Persons with Disabilities and the Guangdong Blind Association, jointly launched the "Double Speed Forward, Achieve Light Blindness" public welfare activity, launched the CARE+ barrier-free companion service on JD.com and Tmall, optimizing the design from three aspects: barrier-free process customization, real-time online voice service to barrier-free package tracking, and improving the shopping experience of visually impaired consumers in multiple dimensions.
Lu Min revealed that in the preliminary survey, it was learned that 90% of visually impaired people rely more on the digital world to carry out social networking, "Although the rapid development of e-commerce has helped visually impaired consumers solve the travel problem of offline shopping, in fact, every aspect of e-commerce shopping has difficulties for visually impaired consumers: picture information cannot be read, express pre-deposit collection is difficult, and after-sales claims and evidence collection are still a lot of challenges for visually impaired users, and some data show that the highest is only 42% Visually impaired people are satisfied with the accessibility of information on the Internet. ”
Some enterprises have launched the "barrier-free companion" service, and the service can be obtained by entering instructions in text or voice on the relevant e-commerce platform.
In order to be able to design a service suitable for the visually impaired, the team invited the visually impaired experience interaction designers to participate in the co-creation, customized the communication skills that meet the listening and reading habits of the visually impaired users, and invited the visually impaired friends to participate in the internal test.
In terms of real-time online voice services, the project cooperates with the e-commerce platform to launch a business voice outbound call service, and the visually impaired enter "double speed forward" in the form of text or voice in the customer service dialog box, and will answer questions through the exclusive shopping companion online telephone, providing a convenient variety of options for online consultation for visually impaired users. In addition, the barrier-free escort will also realize full-link tracking of barrier-free packages, communication logistics delivery, and ensure the receiving experience of visually impaired users.
Recommendations
What will the e-commerce platform do in the future?
It is recommended to make information accessible first
Nandu reporter found that in recent years, many Internet platforms have launched barrier-free services to further promote the integration of visually impaired people into social development. However, on the existing e-commerce platform, there are almost no models for the visually impaired to choose, and the mainstream e-commerce platforms only provide options for the conventional model and the elderly model.
In Xu Jian's view, the launch of the barrier-free companion service can help the visually impaired to better complete online shopping to a certain extent. She also expects that more companies will launch similar services in the future, and e-commerce platforms can be further optimized.
Xu Jian suggested that in the process of merchants entering the e-commerce platform, barrier-free services can be taken as one of the settlement criteria, prompting merchants to write more detailed product copywriting, so that visually impaired people can directly obtain product information through the interface, and can also reduce manual intervention.
Xu Jian believes that in order to achieve barrier-free shopping, the e-commerce platform still has a relatively large optimization space. First of all, the first step is to achieve information barrier-free, "some operation entrances will be set in a deeper position, and it is not easy for visually impaired people to find this operation entrance." Taking Taobao as an example, when opening the app, there will be a pop-up box prompting you to receive the red packet, but the 'back' button in the red packet collection interface cannot be read aloud, and we cannot find it from the screen, which hinders the next operation. Only by making information accessible can we drive the next step of optimization. ”
Written by: Nandu reporter Zheng Yunan
Images courtesy of respondents