Empowering the Visually Impaired: Advancing Digital Skills in Mobile ICT as Motivator and Enabler.

Abstract

Mobile ICT, such as smartphones and tablets, has become integral for everyday tasks like finance, communication, and entertainment. While these technologies offer significant opportunities for integration and combating loneliness, visually impaired individuals still face challenges. These include practical barriers due to poor universal design, motivational hurdles, and inadequate lifelong education. In this paper, we aim to identify both the motivational and educational facilitators, as well as the technical and societal inhibitors, to digital skill development in mobile ICT among visually impaired individuals. Our approach involved participating as silent observers in an IT course for visually impaired users. Our study underscores that visually impaired individuals value mobile ICT for enhancing their daily lives. We identify opportunities, including key motivations to learn about ICT, and compile a list of useful apps and devices for visually impaired people. Simultaneously, we identify challenges related to technical and universal design, competence and societal issues, motivation, and attitudes, as well as security, privacy, and fraud concerns.