Blind people navigate spaces using their other senses. A public restroom is the one place you don’t want to use your sense of touch.

GuideDot is a raised map of the restroom, mounted by the door. Every wall, stall, sink, and amenity is depicted by tactile icons, labeled in braille and high contrast print, and described aloud when you tap your phone to the map.

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Latest GuideDot wins PitchAbility 2026 and will present at Sight Tech Global.

The edge of a wooden restroom door at Vista Center in San Jose, and on the white wall beside it the blue and white WOMEN sign with a wheelchair symbol. Directly below the sign hangs the GuideDot map: a small black plate with white raised linework showing the stalls, two sinks and a towel dispenser, the labels STALL, SINK and TOWEL in print and braille, a TAP HERE pad in the top corner, and a purple arrow at the doorway.
Installed beside the women’s restroom at Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired in San Jose.

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Why it matters.

Designed with the blind community. Used by everyone.

  • Blind visitors read the braille, or tap their phone to the map and hear the room described.
  • Low vision visitors see the bold, high contrast layout.
  • Seniors learn which stall has a grab bar.
  • Everyone can tell whether a restroom is single-user or multi-stall before walking in.

Small sign, big statement.

At $200 per restroom, a GuideDot map is a low-lift way of making a visible, tangible statement that your facility welcomes everyone. Each map mounts right below your existing restroom sign, is made to ADA and CBC braille standards, and needs no power, batteries or maintenance beyond the same wipe down as the sign above it.

Who we are.

GuideDot is two people in the Bay Area: one builds the software and reads every map by touch, the other draws the maps and puts them on the wall.

Bhavya Shah, a young man with short dark hair and a light beard, in a navy blazer over a blue open-collared shirt, photographed outdoors in warm evening light with a fountain and trees behind him.

Bhavya Shah

Co-founder

Bhavya is blind, reads braille, and invented the technology that turns any restroom into a tactile map. He graduated from Stanford in mathematics and computer science, and has worked at Meta, the World Bank, and Benetech.

He is also an award-winning stand-up comedian and a world champion debater.

Ania Filochowska, a young woman with shoulder-length light brown hair and a wide smile, in a black long-sleeved top with her arms crossed, photographed outdoors on a balcony with terracotta rooftops, trees and an overcast sky behind her.

Ania Filochowska

Co-founder

Ania designs the maps. Every icon, label, and layout GuideDot has installed began as her drawing, refined with blind readers until it read cleanly by touch. She runs the site visits and works with each facility from the first call to the day the map goes up.

A violinist who studied with Itzhak Perlman and trained at The Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music, she has performed in more than seventy countries and studied business at Stanford.

A finished map in three steps.

  1. 1Show us the room

    A walkthrough video from your phone is enough, or we can visit and survey it ourselves. We confirm some details, like which stall is accessible and which way the door swings.

    The whole walkthrough video of a women’s restroom: 30 seconds on a phone, narrated as it goes.
    Read the transcript

    The video opens on the WOMEN sign beside the restroom door, then walks in to the paper towels, menstrual products and trash can beside the sinks, along the two sinks on the right wall, into the regular stall and the accessible stall with its grab bars, and ends looking back at the door.

    “Hi. We are at a women’s restroom. When we enter, there are paper towels, menstrual products, and a trash can to the right. On the right wall, we’ve got two sinks and a soap dispenser. We find one regular stall, and across from the entrance, we have an accessible stall. So this is it, and now it’s time to design.”

  2. 2We make the map

    We turn your restroom into a tactile map with our own technology, designed to match your facility’s colors. We send you a preview of the design, then print it.

    The design preview of the map for that restroom, on a square brown sign. A white TAP PHONE TO HEAR pad sits in the top left corner. The white raised floor plan is a tall rectangle with a white arrow pointing in through the entrance door at the bottom. Two toilet stalls stack along the right wall at the top, two sinks sit below them on the right wall, and a menstrual products dispenser and the paper towels sit on the entrance wall to the right of the door. The labels STALL, SINK, TOWEL and FEM appear in print and braille beside them, and the GUIDEDOT wordmark is in the bottom left corner.
    The design preview of the map for that same restroom, ready for the facility to approve before we print it.

  3. 3Mount it by the door

    It mounts with adhesive, with no screws or drilling, and we work with your facilities team to install it. Every map comes with an audio description built in, played by touching your phone to the Tap to Hear pad. It is durable, high contrast, and easy to keep clean.

    Bhavya, a young man in a light blue shirt, stands at the men’s restroom door at Vista Center with his guide dog, a chocolate Labrador in harness, at his side. His right hand rests on the GuideDot map, a small black plate mounted directly below the blue and white MEN sign, with white raised linework, the labels STALL, URINAL, SINK and TOWEL, and a TAP HERE pad in the top corner.
    A finished map at the men’s restroom at Vista Center in San Jose, right below its standard sign, where anyone searching for the sign finds it too.

Get in touch.

We’re welcoming new pilot sites now. If you’re interested, write to us and we’ll get back to you, or book a short intro call with Ania. We can also send a sample map if you’d like to feel one first.

Write to us Book an intro call