Walmart customer using white cane and smartphone with access to Aira for visual assistance
Accessibility & Technology

Walmart Offers Visual Assistance On-Demand

Jan 18, 2025

Walmart Offers Visual Assistance On-Demand

Shopping with vision loss is like a treasure hunt, minus the fun. If you are able to locate the appropriate aisle for an item, then you still have to hunt for the spot that item is hidden in. Counting on memory is useful to a point, until the store gets rearranged or the product package is redesigned. It can help to use magnifiers or apps, to identify products, however, these tools do not exactly streamline the process. Finding human help is usually easier said than done.  

It just so happens, Walmart, has a solution for visually impaired and blind customers. The retail juggernaut now offers live visual assistance, through the Aira app, in all it’s US stores and online. The beauty of this arrangement is it brings you directly to a highly trained agent, who can see what you may not be seeing yourself. The shopping assistance is paid for by Walmart, not the customer, and there’s no time limit on your shopping. So, go ahead, shop to your heart’s content. 

If the Aira Explorer app is not already loaded on your phone, get it on Google Play or the App Store. Open the app and instantly connect with a live visual interpreter for professional assistance navigating the store or the website, locating products, price checking, exploring in-store promotions, and getting checked out.  There is much to be said for trained shopping assistants, available when you need it.  You will find it incredibly refreshing to interact with a real person, not a chatbot. And, by the way, live beings easily beat artificial brains, when it comes to finding, reading and identifying all kinds of stuff. 

Give it a try at a Walmart near you. (and Target for that matter) and elevate your belief in humanity. The video that follows combines technology, AI and human interaction, for a most productive outcome, featuring Aira and Meta Ray-Ban Glasses.

Accessible Shopping at Walmart for people who are blind or low vision 

More about Aira on OE

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About the Author: Dorrie Rush

Dorrie Rush is the Chief Content Officer and Visual Accessibility Expert at Ophthalmic Edge Patients (OE Patients), an online resource, presented by the Association for Macular Diseases, providing practical information and empowering advice for living a full and successful life with vision loss.

She is the former Director of the Grunwald Technology Center and Information Resource Service at Lighthouse International 2001 to 2016. Dorrie is known to have an eccentric view, which is particularly useful in compensating for her central vision loss from Stargardt Disease.

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