"AI Describes Food Photos"... Baemin Develops Feature to Support the Visually Impaired
Baemin Unveils Accessibility Improvements for Visually Impaired Users Ahead of Disabled Persons Day
Woowa Brothers, the operator of Baemin, announced on April 19 that it has developed a new feature to assist visually impaired users ahead of Disabled Persons Day (April 20). The feature utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to provide detailed descriptions of food photos, supporting visually impaired people in using the application.
While the existing screen reader function was limited to reading text displayed on a smartphone screen, the new feature uses AI to analyze images and provide vivid audio descriptions of elements such as food color, degree of doneness, and the visual appearance of key ingredients. To enable visually impaired users to select menu items conveniently and intuitively, Woowa Brothers collaborated with the AI startup ConnectBrick.
Baemin began developing this feature in February this year and, together with the social venture company Missionit, carried out tests with 30 visually impaired participants at the Siloam Center for the Blind in Gwanak-gu, Seoul, from March 31 to April 2. Participants gave positive feedback, saying, "I can picture the food in my mind," "I feel recognized as a consumer," and "The information gap about 'images' that I couldn't access before now seems to be resolved."
Test participants gave a high score of 4.5 out of 5 in the "usefulness assessment" and suggested various opinions, such as "ingredient details and the form and composition of menu items should be included in the descriptions." Baemin is reviewing ways to apply this AI-powered food photo description feature to its actual service.
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Kim Joonghyun, Head of Sustainability Management at Woowa Brothers, said, "We will go beyond simple social contribution by strengthening the core functions of our service to realize social value and actively fulfill our corporate social responsibility to improve accessibility, ensuring that everyone can benefit from technology without discrimination."
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