In a Belgian hypermarket, Carrefour is testing if technology can help visually impaired customers to shop independently and without obstacles. This is a European first.
Information via QR codes
At the entrance to the hypermarket, Carrefour has placed a tactile and audible map. When someone touches the map, a voice tells where each department is located. This helps visually impaired customers to get to know the layout of the shop and make a mental image of it.
Smart, coloured QR codes are placed on the floor, above the aisles and in the shelves: smartphone app Navilens can detect them from up to twenty metres away, guiding customers smoothly and safely through the shop to the products of their choice. Scanning the QR codes on the shelves also gives extra information about the product, its ingredients and price.
With this trial, Carrefour wants to raise awareness about the issue as well as test the technology. In the first phase, the retailer is providing 45 QR codes on the floor to guide people through the shop, 167 QR codes at the entrances to the aisles and 1,700 codes on the shelves near the fastest rotating products.
Trial store
One in ten people are visually impaired, and that number will triple in the next 25 years due to the ageing population, Amaury Marchandise of technology partner SeedGrowth Accessibility says. “Autonomy is very important to these people. They avoid places where they cannot move freely. We help them navigate through the shop autonomously.”
Inclusion is an important issue for Carrefour Belgium, CEO Geoffroy Gersdorff adds. The company shows this as an employer: more than 3 % of its employees in Belgium have a disability. The chain has run trials for other impairments as well, with initiatives such as adapted shopping trolleys for wheelchair users or quiet hours on weekdays between 2 and 4pm for hypersensitive people. The hypermarket in Auderghem (Brussels) is the pilot shop for all accessibility initiatives.
