Have you ever wondered which types of WayTags to use for items in your kitchen? WayAround can be used on ingredients, prepared foods, and kitchen equipment.

With seven types of WayTags, there’s a WayTag for just about everything. But which one is best?

Watch this webinar, where we chat with Cory Ballard, Director of Assistive Technology for Vision Forward Association in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Jessica gives a demonstration of WayAround and how you can enter custom information about a product—in this case coffee. You don’t have to put lots of details in, but if you want a lot of detailed information, WayAround lets you put in whatever information is helpful for you.

Cory says that one of the reasons he’s a big fan of WayAround is that it works with a smartphone. While smartphones and touch screens aren’t for everybody, the WayAround app is simple enough that most people can use it.

“With WayAround there are still some really cool opportunities, even if you’re not a full-fledged smartphone user,” Cory remarks. “I always have my phone in my pocket, so there’s that ability to quickly scan a tag and get that description. One of the biggest strengths is you can get the information quickly and have that other information and access it as you need it.”

Cory has been blind for 28 years, so he has many systems already in place. He started out with things that he needs to identify on a daily basis. “Everytime I grabbed something and said, ‘What is this?’ I made myself create a WayTag for it if it made sense.”

The Difference Between Barcode Scanners and WayAround

Barcode scanners are often used for product identification, especially for items in the kitchen. There are lots of barcode scanners with multi-directional scanning and good databases with extra information. Cory explains that “One of the big challenges of this type of product is the price, which can be well over $1,000.” It’s also another device that you have to keep up with.

Cell phone options with barcode scanning rely on the camera of the phone is much more difficult to do.

“Pen Friend is geared towards people who need very basic information, Cory explains. “It’s easy to do, but with that ease of use comes a lot of limitations.”

Since WayAround uses NFC tags, Cory says that there are two benefits: First, it’s tactile, so “you know exactly where that tag is, even if you didn’t put the tag on that product.” Second, because WayAround uses NFC, you just touch the phone to the WayTag. There’s no lining up or getting it just right.

“WayAround can be as easy or as complex as you want to make it. And that’s for reading a tag or creating a tag.”

If you want to just enter simple information, you can do so by entering information into the description field. If you want additional information, you can use the detail types to provide additional information. Or you can use the custom fields to create the tags to your needs.

“Most apps,” Cory says, “if they go very simple then you’re very limited on what you can do. If you make an app complex, the cognitive load is too much. WayAround has done a great job of making it both simple and complex at the same time.”

Choosing a WayTag for Kitchen Items

Cory offers ideas for which type of WayTags to use on different types of products in the kitchen.

• Salad dressing: Cory recommends the round WayTag sticker. He advises to think about what to do what the item has been used. Instead, you can stick a sticker on a file card and then stick the file card on the salad dressing bottle, so you can move it to another bottle. Darwin recommends removable labels to affix WayTags to any item.
• Ice cream: A round WayTag sticker or a WayClip would both work. Be sure it is secure. The oval hole button is completely waterproof and cold-proof down to -40 degrees. You can attach it with a silicone band.
• Portioned meat for the freezer: If it’s in a plastic bag, a round WayTag sticker or the oval hole button could be attached in a way that it can be reused.
• Bags of chips or pretzels: The WayClip plastic clip could be used. If you have chip clips, you can stick a WayTag sticker on the chip clip. If your chip clip has metal or a magnet, use the square on-metal WayTag sticker.

50 Ways to Use WayAround in the Kitchen

We put together a PDF guide with 50 ways you can use WayAround in the Kitchen. Enter your information below and we’ll send it to you!