Starting an exercise regimen is difficult, much less maintaining one.  

For those with visual impairments, factors that peers with vision could take for granted can further complicate the process, from being able to self-monitor for correct form to even setting up an obstacle-free environment to move safely. 

Ali Brian, associate dean for research in the College of Education and professor in the department of educational and developmental science, wants to bridge those barriers. Through her work as research director of the Institute of Movement Studies for Individuals with Visual Impairments and in partnership with the State University of New York at Brockport and the Rochester Institute of Technology, she works with youth and adolescents with visual impairments to make fitness and health literacy concepts accessible. 

Her most recent work: an app designed to verbally coach users through the correct performance of fitness moves, offering specific feedback to those who may not be able to see their own bodies in motion.

 Through internal funding from ASPIRE AI, a program under the Office of the Vice President for Research that boosts artificial intelligence research projects, Brian hired a graduate student at Rochester Institute of Technology, Sidney Grabosky, to develop a beta version of the app. 

The app’s technology is a far cry from the full-body suits covered in dots that Brian remembers from her doctoral program and that many will recognize from behind-the-scenes shots of CGI films. Now, requiring nothing but a functioning iPhone camera, the app uses artificial intelligence to recognize the user’s body parts and track their movements. It is currently equipped to coach users through supine to stand – a functional exercise requiring one to stand and touch a wall from a lying-down position, which serves as an indicator of motor function.  

In February, Brian and the team tested out the app with youth and adolescents with visual impairments through Camp Abilities, an international network of sports camps supporting fitness and recreation for individuals with visual impairments or deaf blindness that has taken Brian from New York to Latvia to Bangladesh and Iceland for her work. During this preliminary testing stage, Brian’s team invited six children with visual impairments to use the app, gathering preliminary data and feedback on how to improve the app for others.  

"Nothing about us without us’ is a guiding principle,” says Brian. “It has to be relevant, workable, useable, feasible and developed with the users included in the process."

Already, Brian’s team has begun integrating feedback, allowing app users to choose the level of detail they receive on their movements and differentiating based on age. After gathering additional data at Camp Abilities in July, Brian aims to pursue funding from the National Eye Institute and NIH to expand the dataset and range of movements supported by the app.  

“The long-term goal is something more dynamic. Feedback on a pushup or a jumping jack, something that moves across space, is way more complicated than something stationary,” Brian says. “The next step is the plank, in time a comprehensive fitness battery.”

She also hopes her project provides inspiration for those working in the artificial intelligence landscape to think more inclusively. “The world tends to be designed for those without disabilities, and then we modify to meet needs in a reactive way,” says Brian. “There’s nothing to preclude someone with vision from using this app. I hope this project and its universal design supports proactivity for all users, with and without disabilities so that they can be considered from the start.”