SelfLens: a portable tool to facilitate all people in getting information on food items

Independently selecting food items while shopping, or storing and cooking food items correctly can be a very difficult task for people with special needs. Product labels on food packaging contain an ever-increasing amount of information, which can also be in a variety of languages. The amount of information and also the features of the text can make it difficult or impossible to read, in particular for those with visual impairments or the elderly. Several tools or applications are available on the market or have been proposed to support this type of activity (e.g. barcode or QR code reading), but they are limited and may require the user to have specific digital skills. Moreover, repeatedly using an application to read the label contents can require numerous steps on a touch-screen, and consequently be time-consuming. In this work, a portable tool is proposed to support people in reading the contents of labels and acquiring additional information, while they are using the item at home or shopping at the supermarket. The aim of our study is to propose a simple portable assistive technology tool which 1) can be used by anyone, regardless of their digital personal skills 2) does not require a smartphone or complex device, 3) is a low-cost solution for the user.