How a visually impaired engineer created a voice command tool with Android

Editor’s note: Pramit Bhargava is a computer engineer and founder of Louie, an app for the visually impaired to have full voice control over third party mobile applications.When I was about 30 years old, I started having problems with my vision. I was born perfectly sighted, but over the course of my adulthood, my vision deteriorated to the point where I couldn’t read anything. My family and friends, of course, wanted to help me with my everyday tasks — and for a while, they had to do that. But I wanted to gain my independence back and feel more confident in my abilities. As a computer engineer, I felt like I could create a solution that could not only help me but help others in my situation.By coincidence, I discovered TalkBack — the Google screen reader built into every Android device. I found that it was really useful in helping me navigate my phone, and I started getting my confidence back. Even with a screen reader, though, I really struggled with certain tasks. In particular, calling a rideshare service was really difficult. I was never sure if I got the destination right, or if my transactions were going through.

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