The design of at-home COVID-19 tests, which delivers results through visual cues, renders the tests inaccessible for visually impaired individuals, FastCompany reported Feb. 8.
The standard rapid at-home COVID-19 tests are difficult for visually impaired individuals to use, according to the report. For example, the rapid tests come with several packaged items that are hard to distinguish from one another, the instructions to use the items are in fine print, droplets are meant to be squeezed into a small hole and results are printed in a faint pink line.
Visually impaired individuals have reported using video apps like Be My Eyes, which connects visually impaired persons to sighted individuals, in order to guide them through the process of at-home testing.
Visually impaired individuals want to be able to use at-home COVID-19 tests without assistance and are calling on manufacturers and healthcare companies to provide and invest in inclusive products, according to the report.
David Janka, MD, designer and lecturer at Stanford d.School suggests COVID-19 tests could be innovated. If the results could be translated using a smartphone accessibility menu, that would allow visually imparied individuals to use their phones to interpret results, without relying on outside help.
Other technology like AI can also be used to help visually impaired individuals with COVID-19 at-home tests as algorithms can be trained to read out test results.