Tootfinder

Beyond Accessibility: How Intelligent Assistive Technologies Improve Activities of Daily Life for Visually Impaired People in South Africa
Ronaldo Nombakuse, Nils Messerschmidt, Pitso Tsibolane, Muhammad Irfan Khalid
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05998

Beyond Accessibility: How Intelligent Assistive Technologies Improve Activities of Daily Life for Visually Impaired People in South Africa
Our study explores how intelligent assistive technologies (IATs) can enable visually impaired people (VIPs) to overcome barriers to inclusion in a digital society to ultimately improve their quality of life. Drawing on the Social Model of Disability (SMD), which frames disability as a consequence of social and institutional barriers rather than individual impairments, we employ semi-structured interviews and an online qualitative survey with n=61 VIPs in South Africa. Using descriptive statisti…