Seeing More
I see about half of what you do. So I “rebuilt” the device they gave me.
personal project · 2025–ongoing
I have hemianopia, no vision on my left side. Not darkness. Just absence. The fix I was offered was a plastic prism glued to a pair of glasses. This is what I've been building instead: signals that extend perception instead of interrupting it. Visual, sonic, spatial.
Seeing more, one workaround at a time. ↘
Understanding partial vision
To design for vision loss, I started by illustrating what it means to see with hemianopia.
Augmented Vision
My first thought experiments began with AR, VR, MR, XR.... Exploring how visual cues could compensate for blind spots.
Using gaze and environment data, subtle gradients or outlines could indicate unseen obstacles or key objects. The goal isn’t to overwhelm users, but to quietly enhance perception through light, contrast, and peripheral motion.
Let's start visualizing
Scenario: walking outside with some sort of enhanced vision
Quick Idea
Picture this with low vision on the left side.
You're walking down the sidewalk; assuming you're looking straight, you might trip, or worse, walk into the tree if you're not paying attention.
In its simplest form, the blue line appears in the blind spot before a potential accident (calling attention to the obstacle being the tree)
animation
Simulated. The blue line is the idea.
Enhanced vision can call attention to even more specific things in your surroundings, like someone in your peripheral vision.
Now that you get the general idea... here’s something a little more tangible
What I was offered as a “solution” is prism glasses
More specifically, EP Horizontal Lenses.
A type of visual field expander designed for individuals with homonymous hemianopsia
It's essentially a Fresnel Lens stuck onto glasses that redirects light from the blind spot in the peripheral visual field into the visible area.
It does work for some people, but it's mostly a blurry distraction
Now that we are in the future, it's the perfect transition for smart glasses!
Let's prototype the experience first
Digital prism.
Live customizable viewfinder overlay. A prototype reimagining the classic prism.
The design call was where to put the blind spot: outside the frame like the prism does, or inside it. I built both to look at them. The models made that a ten-minute question instead
of a two-day one.
With regular vision
With Hemianopia
*I don't see black; I just don't see,
if that makes sense
Notice how the blind spot is accessible in the viewfinder. Same fundamentals as the current prism glasses, just reimagined in higher fidelity.
This quick experience validated how a simple and classic visual layout can be repurposed functionally!
What the prism taught me
The medical version fails for a reason nobody mentioned: it's always on. It doesn't know when I need it, so it blurs the rest of the time. A digital one can. Same optical trick, but it only appears when there's something in the space I can't see.
A lens corrects vision. A system pays attention.
Next: mixed reality builds and extending the other senses.
Seeing more, one workaround at a time.