Shopping Buddy Mobile Application

总部位于奥克维尔的AbleDocs公司目前是为有特殊视力要求的人提供文本无障碍服务的全球领导者。他们希望通过满足弱视人士的日常需要来扩大市场范围。在与Seneca合作的案例中，他们的目标是在店内购物体验的背景下实现文本可访问性。在解决这一市场需求方面，AbleDocs面临的挑战是调整他们的文本可访问性技术，使零售和产品信息在店内立即可视化访问。AbleDocs和Seneca合作的目的是开发一个应用程序，可以将产品包装文本转换为可访问的文档。来自塞内卡大学软件设计与数据科学学院（SDDS）的Tanvir Alam教授将与来自塞内卡大学创意艺术与动画学院（SCAA）的Monica Fontana教授共同领导该项目。拟议中的购物伙伴应用程序将作为一个零售生态系统，汇集来自制造商、分销商、零售商和消费者实体的内容。这个项目对AbleDocs来说很重要，因为它的使命是为世界上所有被边缘化的人提供视觉访问。该项目也将为注册会计师提供一个极好的体验式学习机会；他们将对设计、视觉和用户体验的可访问性和包容性的技术要求有一个基本的理解。由此产生的应用程序和合作伙伴关系将遵循最初原型的发展，从而在零售环境中实现全球范围的包容良性循环。

Oakville based, AbleDocs Inc., is currently the global leader in text accessibility services for persons living with specialized vision-ability requirements. They wish to broaden their market reach by addressing the every-day needs for persons with low-vision. In the case of this collaboration with Seneca, they are targeting text accessibility in the context of the in-store shopping experience. AbleDocs' challenge in addressing this market need is to adapt their text accessibility technology to make retail and product information immediately visually-accessible, in-store. The intention of the proposed collaboration between AbleDocs and Seneca is to develop an app, which can transform product packaging text into accessible documents. Professor Tanvir Alam from Seneca's School of Software Design and Data Science (SDDS) will co-lead the project with Professor Monica Fontana from Seneca's School of Creative Arts & Animation (SCAA). The proposed Shopping Buddy app will work as a retail ecosystem bringing together content from manufacturers, distributors, retailers and consumer entities. This project is important to AbleDocs as its mission is to give visual access to all marginalized individuals throughout the world. The project will also provide an excellent experiential learning opportunity for the RAs; they will develop a fundamental understanding of technology requirements for accessibility and inclusivity in design, visual and user-experience. The resulting app and partnerships, which will follow the development of the initial prototype, enabling a world-wide virtuous cycle of inclusion within the retail environment.