Guidebox is a joint venture between Chris Ryan, who has just graduated from Bournemouth University and We Love Mobile, a London based creative mobile agency. The aim; to provide access information to blind and partially sighted people via the mobile internet.
Background The concept began life as a final year project for Chris, who had been doing work experience at We Love Mobile. The agency loved the idea, so offered to help develop it when Chris graduated and formed a new company. We put the project forward for VMC2009 in the hope of getting the funding needed to get it developed. We think it is a great concept, with real social purpose and a proper business model, but I guess we would say that... see what you think...
What is it for? To set the scene, Guidebox is designed to help people who are blind or partially sighted navigate their way around unfamiliar buildings. There are over two million blind or partially sighted people living in the UK alone. While accessing familiar buildings is something that is gradually learnt over time, visiting a new building can be very difficult and daunting. Finding the building entrance, floor-plan information, help desks, transport access and potential hazards, is all ‘access’ information that even sighted people can have trouble with.
Imagine, if you will, having to move around your house in the dark. You would probably manage it. Imagine having to do the same in a house that you’d never even been to. Well, that’s the kind of challenge faced by blind or partially sighted people whenever they want to visit a new location, and that’s why Guidebox is potentially such a great product.
What is the basic concept? Blind or partially sighted people are just as wedded to their phones as sighted people, so mobile is, in theory, the perfect vehicle for delivering access information when people are out and about. Part of what Guidebox does is provide a platform to allow access information to be requested and delivered in a format that can be easily accessed by users.
The commercial and social concept is simple and based on three key principles; 1. Provide essential access information in a usable format direct to people’s phones - thereby helping to improve their quality of life 2. Build the service using existing and readily available technology – ensuring that it can reach the widest audience possible 3. Offer those with a statutory duty to provide access information a painless, cost-effective solution – so that, once developed, the product can quickly begin to fund itself
We will detail the technical solution in our next post, but for those who are curious, below is a basic overview:
