Google's Guided Frame gives visually impaired people a voiceover for selfies

Love 'em or hate 'em, selfies are an important aspect of photography; they help us connect with our loved ones, and people spend an amazing amount of time thinking about how to look good in photos taken of yourself. (I should know, I wrote a whole fucking book about them in a past life). Blind and partially sighted people still use phones, of course – there's a ton of audio guidance available on modern smartphones – but taking photos is much more difficult. Well, that was until Google introduced its guided framework, which came to life at one of Google's hackathon events.

The feature is very neat: point the camera towards you, and the phone will tell you how to tilt and rotate the camera to put you completely in the frame, then take the shot for you.

With prompts like "Move your phone right and up" and a handy countdown timer to get the right poses and facial expressions. You can watch the relevant section of Google's Made By Google '22 event here.

"For me, and for many blind users, a selfie is a way to express themselves," says Ling Wong, who was part of the team that brought Pixel's camera software to Image Guide. .

Love to see more accessibility features popping up on phones, and at tech events in general. It's telling, for example, that the entire event was signed in American Sign Language and fully captioned in high quality. Standardizing accessible thinking at all levels of product development is a beautiful thing, and Google deserves kudos for pushing the envelope in the right direction.