A Study of Service Touchpoints in the Design of Assistive Products Required by People with Visual Impairment

This review investigates the problem of hospital orientation touchpoints for individuals with visual impairments. This paper aims to provide a framework for the service design considerations that designers and engineers of medical devices must consider to aid the visually impaired people in the hospital orientation. In addition, service design and design thinking techniques were utilized to synthesize the findings. Four-person focus groups were used to conduct semi-structured interviews. Using purposeful sampling, a group of Yinchuan, China, visually impaired people were chosen to be interviewed and guided through a series of fictitious medical crises. Using a user journey map and service touchpoint analysis, the service touchpoints encountered by the visually impaired population while using the guided care service were summarized and unified, yielding into several design recommendations. Based on the research provided in the research on assistive device design for the visually impaired population and the collected studies on hospital guidance services, current research on hospital guidance services is focused more on changing service design from the hospital perspective. The potential scenario applications of this wearable device have been largely neglected in previous studies on the design of assistive devices for people with visual impairment. Finally, the contact points that visually impaired people will encounter in the hospital alone were divided into three: before, during, and after the visit. These contacts were divided into eight categories. Although research on inclusive design and related topics from the perspective of the visually impaired has increased, very little has been done to examine this issue from the perspective of actual use cases.  Despite the importance of the design and technology phases of product development, there is still a need for further research into the design of antecedent services in the context of what people with visual impairment require.