Hi Cleva. I miss grocery shopping. There's something primal and emotionally satisfying about hunting/gathering and physically bringing the results of your efforts home to feed your family, like an ancient hunter. I viewed myself almost as a battlefield commander out to win the protein without exposing my credit card flank to unnecessary danger from the snack aisle, or maybe as a chess grandmaster matching wits with the advertisers to find the point where nutrition, taste, and affordability are each maximized.

Yes, I have an overactive imagination. Why do you ask?

I still shop with my wife but she's the one putting stuff in the cart. I'm just along to remind her in case she forgets how beautiful she is.

Okay, onto your question. The problem with shopping for groceries while blind isn't in advertising, it's with other shoppers. I know where the canola oil is. I know what brand I like. But I didn't know your four year old was next to my cart and I didn't mean to turn into her, and I'm sorry she's crying and I don't expect a four year old to know what my white cane means and your attitude is doing way more harm to your daughter than getting bumped by my shopping cart ever could, but maybe not because if you don't get up in my face you risk sending her the message she's not worth defending. Parenting is hard. I'm not blaming you because my kids were four once, too, and I realize how magical a grocery store seems to a four year old and if you don't let them explore the magic you're failing at parenting in a different kind of way and fuck it, can I just have my eyesight back for an hour each week? Is that too much to ask? Just an hour a week to shop without running into a little girl with my cart?

See what I mean?

There isn't much advertising can do to make the blind shopping experience better. Packaging could play a role, especially in spices. Tiny identical bottles with tiny print doesn't really work for us. But advertising? Some of us are totally blind, some of us see the world without color, others without focus, some only on the periphery, some with tunnel vision, some only see hints of light and shadow. There are too many kinds of blindness to say to an advertiser "Just do this and it would be so much better!" If you asked 30 blind people what twerk in advertising would help them most you'd probably get 25 different answers.

I don't personally use it but I'd imagine shopping from home and having groceries delivered is done quite often in the blind community. If we're shopping on a screen we already have the magnification and contrast set to levels that work for us, or we have a screen reader.

I know I wasn't much help with your specific question put hopefully I've given you a glimpse of the scope of the problem. If you have a more specific question my DMs are always open.

The best way to help would be to have awareness of readability on the package/ad.

- contrasting colors: if the background is light, use dark font and visa versa.
- easy to read fonts: some fonts are beautiful, but if the lines are too thin or too wavy ... I can't see them and my phone can't focus enough for me to enlarge it either.

Really those are the only aspects that keep me from being able to choose a certain product. Also, it gets exhausting asking my husband if this is a bottle of body wash or shampoo.

It's interesting that you would post something like this. My undergraduate thesis I guess you would call it was on marketing and IT and its effects on the blind. I actually won an award for it.

Personally I think the biggest struggle is seeing the fine print/prices (which I would say is pretty important). Also, this may be weird but I feel so awkward bringing an object two inches from my face to read what it says beyond just the title. The other problem is that you can't move the prices. Like they are in a fixed space on the shelf and I don't like bending over to read them. Sorry this paragraph probably doesn't make any sense, but I really home more people would help make shopping easier for us low vision and blind people

In terms of advertising, readability. It doesn’t matter if the product is on TV. Blind people watch TV all the time. Read out the name of the product. Try to make it clear, and not over the top with music and jingles. At least for part of the advertisement. I do like jingles. A lot of blind people have help shopping from grocery store staff. Put yourself in their shoes when making the advertisement. What is the name, or sub product name that they would recognize when being asked for that particular product by a blind person?
Packaging. Packaging is either really good, or really bad. I have half-gallon cartons in my fridge all the time. 100% milk, 1% milk, soy milk, oat milk, and sometimes orange juice. While these cartons all feel the same, the lids on them are somewhat different. Some stick out more from the top, some are closer to the carton. Some have thick ridges, some have ridges more space together. The list goes on. Suffice it to say, don’t blend in with the competition. Don’t let your product stand out in the visual way only, but let it stand out physically a little bit too.

I agree with the post that reference good contrasting text. Font size should be big well. I use the Magnifier app on my iPhone all the time in the grocery store and find it very helpful, but easy to read fonts are extremely important to me.