CAREEM, the largest provider of smart transportation services in the Kingdom and the region’s only tech unicorn, has announced a new addition to the app to help visually impaired customers use its services.

Careem has been collaborating with a number of blind people during a testing phase to learn what challenges they were facing and how modifications could help them use the app.

As a result, the development of Careem apps on Android and iOS have an “accessibility” feature to aid vision-impaired customers and let them also benefit from the company's services.

Accessibility features that have been introduced include a text-to-speech feature to read out text for people with limited vision, while a speech-recognition feature allows users with limited mobility to control the computer with their voice.

Dr. Abdulla Elyas, co-founder and CEO of Careem KSA, said: “Our mission is to simplify and improve the lives of people in the region. We’re extremely proud to launch our new accessibility features which will support our visually impaired customers. As an AI driven organization, we want to be able to use our tech to ensure our services are accessible by all. Our app underwent a rigorous testing process with the right target audiences and we can now ensure that our visually impaired customers can use our services without the need to ask for help from someone else, letting them maintain their independence.”

Careem was launched in 2012 and over the past six years, the company has experienced month-to-month growth of over 30 percent and is currently present in more than 50 cities in Saudi Arabia. Since its launch, Careem has provided millions of successful rides to millions of users with more than 170,000 Saudi captains. — SG