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Walmart Enhancing Accessibility For Shoppers With Disabilities


Walmart is offering customers with disabilities the option to get assistance from a visual interpreter while shopping at its stores or website. (Shutterstock)

The nation’s largest retailer is piloting a new program aimed at enabling people with disabilities to shop more independently.

Walmart is providing free access to visual interpreters at its stores and on its website.

The company is partnering with Aira, a third-party service, to connect customers with sighted interpreters who can relay detailed information in real time about their surroundings, help them navigate or read signage, labels and more.

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To use the service, individuals stream live video of their surroundings through the Aira mobile phone app.

Visual interpreters are trained to offer objective feedback so that users can make independent choices, Walmart said. And, since the retailer is offering complementary access to the service, company officials said that customers will be able to take as long as they need to wade through their options.

Gayatri Agnew, head of Walmart’s Accessibility Center of Excellence, said that offering access to Aira is just the company’s latest move to improve the shopping experience for people with disabilities. She cited the recent addition of sensory-friendly shopping hours, making Caroline’s Cart available at every store and expanding Walmart’s adaptive product lines.

“The reality is, we have tons of shoppers with disabilities who we want to make sure are having as good, if not better, of a shopping experience with us as someone who doesn’t have a disability,” Gayatri said.

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