Table 4.

Shopping and Finances Category: Example Challenges and Quotes

Activity	Challenge code and participant quote
Managing finances	Assistance from others: “The print that is immediately available by their scanners or by their receipts are difficult to read with my eyesight as it is, and so I have to rely on others to read to ensure that I understand what I’m purchasing.” Physical: “It’s just being able to interact with [a computer] because of my carpal tunnel. As far as me being independent at doing financial transactions, I do very few.” Can’t do or don’t do the task: “When I go to restaurants now, I basically stopped trying to fill out the credit card receipt. I have my friends fill them out. I could use my magnifier to read what the amount is, but then to add the tip, and find the line to add the tip. I’m left-handed and I hook my hand when I’m writing, which casts a shadow when I use a magnifier so that can be a real problem.”
Going shopping in-person	Visual limitation: “As a totally blind person, I’m not able to simply go in and find what I want. I can use a barcode reader, and there are other phone apps that do similar types of things, but if I’m going to try to read every barcode … I’m going to be in a supermarket for hours and hours.” Emotional or social: “I used to get upset … I go in [the store] and I start reading the labels with my magnifier, and I realized the way that I be doing things, it’s the same way that somebody would be doing who would be stealing. I used to work at a center for visually impaired people and we used to tell people ‘don’t be alarmed when you be shopping alone’, because you might be looking suspicious. Your face be all down in the clothes like you might be trying to hide something under your arm … if a person doesn’t know what it is you’re dealing with, they very well [could think] you are stealing.” Communication: “Things are really hard to describe. [There are] basic primary colors, but now you have seafoam green and teal, when somebody tries to describe those colors to me, they’re not in my memory bank.”
Shopping online	Technology, tools, or devices: “I have magnification on my computer, [but] very little at one time fits on the screen, and so trying to maneuver through the pages to see what’s there is very difficult for me. There have been a couple of occasions where I double ordered something.” Accessibility: “Websites that deal a lot with pictures of what they’re selling and not descriptions of what they’re selling [is challenging].” Cognitive or knowledge limitation: “I really don’t know how to do it. I just got an iPhone and I’m trying to learn how to use it, I would like to be more able to do online shopping. I would like to know everything that would help me to make me more independent like I used to be.”