Face Recognition Assistant for People with Visual Impairments

Although there are many face recognition systems to help individuals with visual impairments (VIPs) recognize other people, almost all require a database with the pictures and names of the people who should be tracked. These solutions would not be able to help VIPs recognize people they might not know well. In this work, we investigate the requirements and challenges that must be addressed in the design of a face recognition system for helping VIPs recognize people with whom they have weak-ties. We first conducted a formative study with eight visually impaired people. Using insights learned from the formative study, we developed a research prototype that runs on a mobile phone worn around the user's neck. The developed prototype is a wearable face recognition system that opportunistically captures and stores undistorted face images and contextual information about the user's interaction with each person to a database, without the user intervention, as she interacts with new people. We then used this prototype application as a technology probe---asking VIP participants to use the device in a realistic scenario in which they meet and re-encounter several new people. We analyze and report feedback collected from VIPs about the design and use of such a service.