Behaviors, Problems and Strategies of Visually Impaired Persons During Meal Preparation in the Indian Context: Challenges and Opportunities for Design
Avyay Ravi Kashyap · 2020 · Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020) · doi:10.1145/3373625.3417083
Summary
This short paper investigates how visually impaired people in India prepare meals, focusing specifically on cooking techniques that involve heat application — an area largely neglected in accessibility research. While preparatory tasks (cutting, peeling, soaking) are primarily tactile and can be performed without visual cues, heat-based cooking requires visual assessment of food state (color changes, browning, consistency) that cannot easily be replaced by touch. The study was conducted in two phases with 12 participants from the Mumbai region: an initial round of open-ended semi-structured interviews with 7 women covering the full meal preparation process from gathering ingredients to cleaning utensils, followed by focused interviews with 5 women of varying cooking experience (5 to 40+ years) on four cooking techniques commonly used in Indian cuisine — boiling, simmering, roasting, and frying. Participants had diverse vision impairments including complete blindness from birth, low vision, and progressive vision loss. The study was motivated by the recognition that existing research on meal preparation by visually impaired people primarily addresses Western audiences and cooking techniques, which do not translate to the Indian context where dishes, equipment (gas stoves rather than electric), and cooking methods differ significantly.
Key findings
For boiling, the main challenges were navigating around hot vessels without burning, estimating liquid quantities, preventing spillage during stirring, and determining food doneness. Strategies included recognizing the smell of spices when cooked, tasting small bites, listening for bubbling sounds, and temporal estimation (timing how long food has been on the burner). For simmering (used in most Indian gravies and for tadka/tempering), the key challenge was detecting color changes that indicate preparedness — VIPs relied on olfactory and auditory cues unique to each element (oil sizzles, jeera/cumin pops, curry leaves make hard popping sounds, liquids produce boiling bubbles), each with distinct smells. Temporal perception was critical for preventing overcooking. For roasting (rotis, dosas, processed meats), the most feared task was flipping items on a hot pan — participants reported burns and difficulty knowing the right moment to flip. One participant wore a cloth glove while cooking. Strategies included creating a "mental picture of food placement" and using temporal estimation. For frying (deep frying pakoras, samosas), fear of hot oil splashing was the dominant concern. Participants stood far from the stove and used long-handled utensils. Determining when food is done frying relied on changes in the sound of bubbling oil — when sizzling reduces, the food is ready. Other challenges included gauging oil temperature for adding food, and retrieving fried items without burns. Across all techniques, participants emphasized that skills improve with experience and that sighted family members often initially discourage VIPs from cooking due to safety concerns.
Relevance
This paper highlights a significant gap in assistive technology: heat-based cooking is one of the most important daily living tasks for independence, yet very few products address it for visually impaired users. The rich catalog of multi-sensory strategies (auditory, olfactory, temporal, tactile) that experienced blind cooks use provides a direct foundation for designing assistive devices — for example, sensors that detect the specific sounds of different spices being tempered, or temperature-based indicators for oil readiness. The Indian context adds important dimensions: gas stoves present different hazards than electric/induction, Indian cooking techniques like tadka and roti-flipping have unique accessibility challenges, and resource-constrained settings make smart home kitchen solutions impractical. The paper proposes design considerations including devices that enhance sensory perception (amplifying cooking sounds, detecting temperature changes), tools that provide safety during heat tasks, and rehabilitation programs that build on the auditory and olfactory strategies already used by experienced cooks. Limitations include the small all-female sample (N=12), the short format (3 pages), and the Mumbai-only geographic scope.
Tags: visual accessibility · blindness and low vision · independent living · cooking accessibility · daily living · Global South accessibility · assistive technology · safety