Providing a user experience thatbenefits all, equally. Accessibility For Everyone

15% 10 Billions one out of 6 people in the world live with some form of disability

The 2011 World Report on Disability released by WHO states that 15% of the entire world population, that is 1 billion people live with disabilities. This amounts to roughly the entire population of the African continent. In other words, one out of 6 people in the world live their daily lives with some form of disability.. At Samsung, we have ever strived to improve on what we have to provide the best experience to all of our users. Human-centered design isn’t just a tagline for us, but a core value on which we create, innovate and design our products.

Meaningful Innovation

Technological innovation for all gives meaning and joy in our lives. All of Samsung’s products, content, and services are built around a ‘human centered philosophy that recognizes diversity and embraces difference’. Samsung pursues technological innovation that is available to all users.

4C Accessibility Design Principles

The four experience design principles of Samsung’s accessibility for all approach.

01 CONSIDERATION, 02 COMPREHENSIVENESS, 03 COHERENCE, 04 CO-CREATION

01 CONSIDERATION Empathetically designed, with detail, for all our users

We at Samsung are ever trying to simplify our product interface - employing a variety of research methodologies to align our design approach to the needs and desires of the user. We strive to listen to and show a sincere effort to understand users including those with disabilities

02 COMPREHENSIVENESS Balanced, equally designed for all

We seek to design for all users, whether they have a disability or not, we at Samsung feel that this should not be a hindrance, or area of discrimination when interacting with our products. We have a set guideline based on varying degrees of disabililties. From as early on as the planning stages of each product, we ensure that our products deliver a holistic experience for all users.

MORE CONTENTS

03 COHERENCE Consistent design experience for all products

Samsung products provide a variety of optional functions for those limited in their movements. Also, continuous research and development in accessibility design ensures that all Samsung products provide equal levels of functionality to all its users.

MORE CONTENTS

04 CO-CREATION Designed Together

Samsung has a dedicated team of professionals from various fields to provide a product-service-educate experience system. Employees with disabilities, research institutes, like-minded communities and groups work together to provide a more hands-on approach to our design experience. Also, we conduct and support internal competitions to open up possibilities of further innovation not only for product development but also for giving back to the community.

MORE CONTENTS

Overcoming Disabilities and Obstacles Approaching Meaning Through Accessibility Design

Our design approach for accessibility in our products is not focused on making functions easier to access or use by people with disabilities, but to go further and fortify their potential and abilities. From that starting point, we consider how our products and services can impact peoples’ lives in a positive way.

Providing innovative technology that allows all users, regardless of disabilities, to communicate and interact with the world around them - we call that meaningful design.
PLAY MOVIE
Close Button
Go back

The visually impaired have a high demand in convenience and safety VISUAL IMPAIRMENT UX GUIDELINE

  • Provides voices that reads menus, functions, and contents in a screen 
  • Provides an audio description feature for video contents
  • Provides better perception and navigation of information in a screen
  • Provides vibration and haptic feedback on a screen and braille text on physical buttons
  • Provides compatibility with diverse assistive devices such as braille keyboards, OCR stands, ultrasonic covers, and voice labels

The hearing impaired place importance on communicating HEARING IMPAIRMENT UX GUIDELINE

  • Provides captioning for video contents and a shortcut menu
  • Provides status and notification alerts through visual or haptic feedback
  • Provides a vibration alert by detecting baby cryings, door bells, and emergency alarms
  • Provides sound considering the hearing range of users with mono-audio and sound balance
  • Provides compatibility with hearing aids, and minimising electromagnetic interference between hearing aids and audio devices

The physically impaired want to control a product easily PHYSICAL IMPAIRMENT UX GUIDELINE

  • Provides substitutional control like one-hand control or gesture controls
  • Provides controlling methods and products which consider wheelchair-boundaries

The cognitively impaired have difficulty incommunicating and expressing emotions COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT UX GUIDELINE

  • Minimizes the flickering of visual elements on a display such as images and animations
  • Provides enough time to respond and feedback to control devices
Go back

Mobile Accessibility Galaxy S6 & S6 edge

  • Mobile Accessibility Galaxy S6 & S6 edge
  • Mobile Accessibility Galaxy S6 & S6 edge

The Galaxy S6 and S6 edge are equipped with innovative features that provide an array of accessibility options.

Voice Assistant for the sight impaired provides audio instructions and simple gesture instructions to interact with the device. Also font size and color can be adjusted to accommodate low eyesight users.

Sound Detector helps those with hearing disabilities distinguish everyday sounds such as the crying of a baby, a doorbell and so on.

Universal Switch helps those who are physically impaired interact with their smart device in a variety of ways. Simply by touching anywhere on the phone, moving your head, or blinking your eyes, you can access and control your device.

TV Accessibility Smart TVs for 2015

  • TV Accessibility Smart TVs for 2015
  • TV Accessibility Smart TVs for 2015

The Samsung Smart TV was recognized by the CES Accessible Technologies Innovation Award 2015 for providing viable options to those with disabilities. Menu transparency, high contrast, enlarge focus are a few of the functions that assist those with sight disabilities. Also, with Samsung’s own hybrid-algorithm functions such as volume, channel changes, program information or menu info can be accessed, or in this case, ‘read’ via voice guide.

Adding to that is closed caption mode for the hearing impaired, or bluetooth headsets that allow multi output audio for a number of people watching the same program but have specific needs.

Print Accessibility MX4 / MX7 Series

  • Print Accessibility MX4 / MX7 Series
  • Print Accessibility MX4 / MX7 Series

Samsung printers follow the universal design ethos of providing the equal amount of function and identical experience to everyone.

All of our printers’ grips, opening and closing of lids and tops can be done with only one hand. Also, the control panel itself has a tilt-pivot function, so that the screen can be viewed from a variety of angles and positions. A supplement menu screen is available for users to control the printer with as little movement and effort as possible.

Maintenance is also quick and easy, as users can choose from print outs, audio, and touch options for the usage reports. Changing toner cartridges, replenishing the paper feed and other maintenance tasks are made easy for all users.

Go back

Samsung Accessibility

  • UX Design
    Introducing unique accessibility experiences
  • Exclusive Group
    Debating issues with professional groups in each division
  • Communities & Professionals
    Applying interviews from users and professionals
  • Research
    Conducting advanced research to develop useful accessibility features 
  • Verification
    Endorsing the quality of accessibility by developing a guideline and a checklist
  • Education and Services
    Supporting a system for users to experience product-service-education

Galaxy Core Advance Developed with employees with disabilities

GO TO PAGE

LOOK AT ME Developed with specialists

GO TO PAGE

Developed with organizations for people with disabilities

Developed with organizations for people with disabilities The Samsung TV accessibility functions have been developed with the Royal National Institute of Blind People (UK) , the Carroll Center for the Blind (USA) , Siloam Center for the Blind (Korea), and the Korea Blind Union.

Taking the frank, opinions and thoughts of actual users, Samsung has built an accessibility design system and has applied it to our TV products since 2014. This lead to our receiving the Accessible Technologies Innovation Award at this year’s CES.

eyeCan / eyeCan+ Supported by employee talent donations

Eye mouse is a device that allows you to control the computer mouse with the gesture of your eyes. While this greatly helped those who were physically disabled and did not have the freedom to use their hands, the device itself was a financial burden, The employees of Samsung got together and initiated a project to bring down the cost of this innovative idea to about 50 dollars. Through C-Lab (Creative Lab) in 2012, eyeCan was released as an economic option for the retina mouse device.

What began as a fixture on a pair of glasses, eyeCan was further developed at the DMC R&D Center in 2014 and was upgraded to a monitor mounted device, appropriately named eyeCan+. Starting this year, Samsung is providing the eyeCan+ to individuals and organizations free of charge, as well as opening up the hardware and software to the public to further advance this meaningful innovation.