Cooking when blind – a few good adaptation

When talking about the daily life of visually impaired people, many tasks that sighted people take for granted are instead challenging. Anybody could list 3 or 4 common things, but as a sighted person I’m sure cooking must be one of the hardest. I would suggest you try cooking with your eyes closed to find out the challenges but that would probably end in an injury or a mess… or both.

According to the WHO – World Health Organization, about 15% of the world's population lives with some form of disability. More than the 25% of these disabled inhabitants, 285 million people exactly, are estimated to be visually impaired: 39 million of these are blind and the rest 246 million, have low vision.

Sometimes accessible technology can help with these daily problems that those millions of people encounter. Here are three innovative products that I found most interesting whilst doing some research. All these devices have two common goals: to simplify life for visually impaired people and to be inclusive designs; not just for people who have a visual impairment but for anybody.

1. Spice packaging

Andrea Zeman, from Croatia, decided to design a special packaging to help blind people differentiate between pots by using their shape, texture and with braille. Blind and visual impaired people, (who tend to be much more sensitive to shapes) can tell the difference between spice pots just by touching them. The texture and shape of each pot is different and if you add a label with braille, the visually impaired person won’t have any problem to recognise one spice from the others.

2. Ocülo

Assuming then that the person has identified and prepared the ingredients independently, they next face probably the biggest challenge - the cooker. Visually impaired people often struggle to see the orientation of the pots or pan handles, as well as placing the cookware on the gas hob. Ocülo is a simple and minimalistic design, with tactile buttons, that makes cooking easier. There are 3 heating levels and they light up the desired result on the display. It also has non-heating markings around the rim of each stove as indicators of where to place pots and pans on the cooking surface.

3. Cooking Pad

How can visually impaired or blind people check if the food is done? Simply checking the food by the smell or taste of it is one option. But, on the other hand, they can use a new device called the Cooking Pad created by two Korean designers. This new technology delivers visual information in a tactile way. The state of cooking can be easily perceived by feeling the pattern of the device. This product is designed not only for reducing the danger of burn while cooking, but also for ease of cooking. As a result the user won´t have to try the food by using their hands or taste.

The way the cooking pad is used is simple: there are three modes the users can choose when cooking: boiling, grilling and frying. The way the food is checked is by a thermal imaging technology, which is used in the food industry.

The experience of cooking can be totally different for visually impaired people with innovative products like the ones introduced above. Do you believe that these products can really make a difference to these target users? Would you buy one of these foodstuffs for your daily cooking?

Cooking when blind – a few good adaptation

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