Mobile Health Technology Accessible to People with Visual Impairments

Although there is a potential of mobile health (mHealth) technology to facilitate self-care of people with visual impairments, less attention has been paid to accessibility of mHealth technology. The study aims at investigating the degree to which the mainstream mobile health applications (apps) that are commercially available on the market are compliant with accessibility standards. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 was used for checking the apps' accessibility. The accessibility problems found were associated with the WCAG accessibility principles -- i.e., perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. It is recommended that user interfaces be presentable to users in ways that they can perceive; users receive a set of user interfaces that would not require any interaction that they cannot perform; users be able to understand the information and the operation of the user interfaces; and health apps provide a variety of features and functions that are compatible with the device and operating system version. As health care consumers with visual impairments are increasingly using health apps for self-care today, we should ensure that those health apps are adequately designed to accommodate those with visual impairments.