Dude, Where's My Luggage? An Autoethnographic Account of Airport Navigation by a Traveler with Residual Vision

The ability to navigate independently through indoor spaces, like airports, is critical for people with visual impairments (PWVI). Yet, prior assistive technology (AT) research tends to decenter the needs of people with residual vision, who constitute the vast majority of PWVI. We conducted an autoethnography of a PWVI with residual vision across eight round-trips through six airports. We found that the physical and digital infrastructure of airports imbue assumptions of total sightedness, while assistive services assume total blindness, with little consideration for travelers with residual vision. We document how accessibility at points of interest is equally important to the navigability between them, suggesting that traditional turn-by-turn approaches may be insufficient for independent air travel by PWVI. Moreover, we argue that current airport and navigation AT design undermines the agency of travelers with residual vision; we call for development of a new class of navigation technologies that center the usable vision of PWVI.