A Systematic Literature Review of the Application of Information Communication Technology for Visually Impaired People

In: International journal of disability management, Band 11

Abstract

Technological advancement in general is providing better and cheaper solutions to
assist the visually impaired (VI) community. Although information communication
technology (ICT) has great potential to support the inclusion of VI people in
educational, social and workforce settings, there are far fewer ICT projects for
VI people compared to other projects. This systematic literature review provides
our findings on the existing state of ICT projects and describes outstanding
issues in ICT support of VI people. Based on our findings, we suggest increased
collaboration among healthcare professionals, caregivers, programmers,
engineers, as well as policy makers; and adoption of policies in future ICT
projects for VI people. A wide search of seven journal databases found a
relevant cross-section of articles that were published between 2010 and 2015.
Software Zotero Standalone and EndNote were used to screen and maintain
metadata. After the initial screening of 6993 titles, 683 abstracts were
scrutinised, from which 55 full text articles were selected for final review. We
analysed and synthesised 37 articles. Our findings show the progress, awareness,
interest, and issues in ICT integration to improve the quality of life for VI
people. Three emergent topics for VI people are (a) assistive technology, (b)
e-accessibility, and (c) virtual interfaces. Our findings suggest that ICT-aided
applications can bring positive changes for VI people. We advance several issues
that should be addressed and further developed, collaboratively, to spread
awareness and invoke new policies aimed to improve the quality of life of VI
people.