The pervasiveness of mobile devices and other associated technologies has affected all aspects of our daily lives. People with visual impairments are no exception, as they increasingly tend to rely on mobile apps for assistance with various visual tasks in daily life. Compared to dedicated visual aids, mobile apps offer advantages such as affordability, versatility, portability, and ubiquity. We have surveyed hundreds of mobile apps of potential interest to people with vision impairments, either released as special assistive apps claiming to help in tasks such as text or object recognition ( n = 68), digital accessibility ( n = 84), navigation ( n = 44), and remote sighted service ( n = 4), among others, or marketed as general camera magnification apps that can be used for visual assistance ( n = 77). While assistive apps as a whole received positive feedback from visually impaired users, as reported in various studies, evaluations of the usability of every app were typically limited to user reviews, which are often not scientifically informative. Rigorous evaluation studies on the effect of vision assistance apps on daily task performance and quality of life are relatively rare. Moreover, evaluation criteria are difficult to establish, given the heterogeneity of the visual tasks and visual needs of the users. In addition to surveying literature on vision assistance apps, this review discusses the feasibility and necessity of conducting scientific research to understand visual needs and methods to evaluate real-world benefits.

中文翻译：

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应用程序作为视障人士辅助设备的影响

移动设备和其他相关技术的普及已经影响到我们日常生活的各个方面。有视力障碍的人也不例外，因为他们越来越倾向于依赖移动应用程序来协助日常生活中的各种视觉任务。与专用视觉辅助工具相比，移动应用程序具有经济性、多功能性、便携性和普遍性等优势。我们调查了数百个视力障碍人士可能感兴趣的移动应用程序，这些应用程序要么以特殊辅助应用程序的形式发布，声称可以帮助完成诸如文本或物体识别（n = 68）、数字辅助功能（n = 84）、导航（n）等任务。 = 44）和远视服务（n = 4）等，或作为可用于视觉辅助的通用相机放大应用程序销售（n = 77）。虽然辅助应用程序作为一个整体收到了视障用户的积极反馈，正如各种研究报告的那样，但对每个应用程序可用性的评估通常仅限于用户评论，而这些评论通常不具有科学信息。关于视力辅助应用程序对日常任务表现和生活质量的影响的严格评估研究相对较少。此外，考虑到视觉任务和用户视觉需求的异质性，评估标准很难建立。除了调查有关视力辅助应用程序的文献外，本综述还讨论了进行科学研究以了解视觉需求和评估现实世界益处的方法的可行性和必要性。