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GE's Access Kit Lets You Easily Retrofit Appliances for Use by the Blind

By Rain Noe - October 22

in UX

GE Appliances sells this Access Kit, which contains over 450 transparent stickers featuring Braille and raised symbols. The idea is to make it easier to retrofit existing appliances for households with blind or low-vision members.

"Designed to represent the 80 most common settings across thousands of appliances, the durable stickers are placed directly over existing controls, allowing appliance buttons, knobs and other functions to be identifiable by touch. They are created to be easy to feel and differentiate with a thin and angular tactile design. They are also transparent so the original text can still be viewed."

GE uncovered the need for the kit while conducting customer research, which shows the importance of studying what end users actually need: "Our research showed that a lot of blind and low-vision consumers are devising their own complex systems just to navigate the settings on their appliances, making simple household tasks incredibly difficult," said GE industrial designer Chris Bissig, who leads a team of both industrial and user interface designers in the Concept & Brand studio.

GE produced the kit in partnership with the American Printing House for the Blind (APH). They retail for $20.

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Alan Nomoto

29 days ago

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My thought is that this “solution” is for a problem that shouldn’t have been there in the first place. The graphics on our washer & dryer still requires staring at it from different loads.

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- Alan Nomoto
  
  Alan Nomoto
  
  28 days ago
  
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  …or scrolling endlessly through menus is not helpful either.
  
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Dan Lewis

29 days ago

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The tactile icons are good. As so few can read it, designers and brands jumping on Braille is ridiculous.

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david copeland

a month ago

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Love the consideration for accessibility - it's a true need.
Working on making rapid diagnostic/testing kits accessible for the low vision. blind and low dexterity populations taught our team alot of things. Firstly, most blind people do not know braille - only 10% actually know how to read it. Those people are (most typically) ones that have been blind at an early age, vs. those who lose their sight later in life and do not learn braille. I therefore do like the tactile icons that I am seeing that are not braille-dependent.
A good first step and I hope they are working with a group of expert users to get the feedback needed to make this something that hopefully could change how able-bodied and able-visioned product designers think!

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