285 million people worldwide suffer from vision problems, 39 million of them are completely blind. To succeed in everyday traffic, they must keep a map of routes, places and obstacles in mind and they often rely on the help of others.

The mission of the leading pharmaceutical company Novartis is to cure and to care. Its eye care division ViaOpta connects with blind and visually impaired people all over the world to increase their independence and the quality of their lives.

As a powerful alternative to human assistance or guide dogs trained at huge costs, ViaOpta has been developing a personal navigation application for smart phones. The ViaOptaNav mobile app combines location services, video-audio conversion and a mission-critical interface design to turn the ever-present smart phone into a very valuable assistant to the visually impaired.

To help blind and low vision people move independently, the app continuously provides audio information to them. The users listen to turn by turn instructions to any given destination. Way-points and upcoming junctions are identified with corresponding distances to improve the effectiveness of the route. The app is freely available for iOS and Android platforms.

The ViaOptaNav mobile application is and shall be freely available from the AppStore (iOS) and Google Play (Android). The application mobile phone location service, also additional GPS signals when necessary. At any time the user can query the app for current position and junctions around. To help blind and low vision people move independently, the app continuously provides audio information to them. The users listen to turn by turn instructions to any given destination. Way-points and upcoming junctions are identified with corresponding distances to improve the effectiveness of the route.

Mobile operating system and application developers increasingly focus on accessibility features. Screen reader technologies are now widely available such as VoiceOver, an option built into the iPhone’s and the iPad’s general settings, or TalkBack, that comes preloaded on Android phones and tablet computers. A handful of free and paid applications for the visually impaired, especially single function ones, have also been released recently.

The first version of ViaOpta NAV was released in October, 2014 for both iOS and Android operating systems. Since then several thousand users have downloaded the free application. A new release with extended functionality, especially in terms of points of interests and public transportation is currently under development.