Sight for Wight, a charity supporting visually-impaired people on the Isle of Wight, has worked with Hampshire Constabulary to place an audible QR codes outside Newport Police Station to assist locals with their day to day lives.
Audible QR codes allow the written word to be transformed into human voice to help the visually impaired (VI) feel confident in their surroundings in their everyday lives, not just when someone is there to help.
QR codes can be scanned using the camera on a smartphone equipped with QR reader software. This software then opens the phone’s internet browser and directs the user to an audio file which contains a verbal description of the environment.
The audio file for the Newport Police Station QR code informs the listener of the opening hours for the front counter, how to contact police outside of these hours, and the layout of the building to assist with navigation.
Lisa Hollyhead, CEO of Sight for Wight, said:
“As someone born with 88% sight loss, I have found the huge number of physical COVID secure changes made in, what were, very familiar surroundings, difficult to judge. I knew voice was the way to help resolve this, but how to turn a poster into voice was the challenge.
“Lockdown allowed me to research to resolve this and “Hello Everyone” was born. Our audible QR codes provides audible guidance giving a basic layout, where to go and what to avoid in any building or environment.
“In order to enable a VI person to find the QR code, it will be placed in the same location every time, and that is 5ft from the ground on the left hand side of the doorway on an external wall. This is so that people, regardless of level of sight, know where to aim their phone to scan for the code.”
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Assistant Chief Constable Craig Dibdin, Hampshire Constabulary’s lead for disability, said:
“We have been working closely with local sight loss charities including Sight for Wight to gain further feedback from visually impaired members of the community about their experiences with the police, and earlier this year we launched a new protocol to improve our contact with visually-impaired people.
“As a police Force we want to be accessible to all people, and I’m delighted that Sight For Wight have created these QR codes to further enable us to achieve this.
“We hope that this technology will enable people with a visual impairment on the Isle of Wight to enter Newport police station confidently and in the knowledge that we will be there to support them.
“We will continue to work in partnership with Sight For Wight, and will explore developing the QR scheme further with a view to increasing our accessibility to all across Hampshire.”
Sight for Wight also supports the families, friends & carers of visually impaired Isle of Wight residents. Membership is free to all Islanders affected by sight loss.
For more details on the Hello Everyone QR codes, visit https://www.iwsb.org.uk/hello-everyone/.
this wouldn’t be needed if the police station was staffed 24 hours a day, as we pay them for it. That front counter should never be closed, ever.