Inclusive beauty: how buying and using cosmetics can be made more accessible for the visually impaired (VI) and blind consumer

Historically, assistive technologies for visually impaired and blind consumers evolved around aiding users in navigation, online content accessibility, learning, object and text recognition, and social interactions. There is no specific work done on technologies assisting these consumers with the use of cosmetics and engaging in self-grooming activities, whist such tasks are common and expected in the context of social and professional environments. This paper consists of two parts. The first one is a review of the assistive technologies relevant to shopping for cosmetics, as well as of the applications and systems which enable the choice of products, including some specifically developed for cosmetic purposes in line with the drive for personalised cosmetics. The second part reports the outcomes of a survey exploring the shopping and product usage of cosmetics by VI and blind individuals, including some qualitative data. The literature review identified a growing field of research and development of assistive technologies supporting shopping tasks and accessing product information. For example, conversion of text and visuals into auditory cues (verbal or other sounds) has been commonly used by VI and blind consumers. A small number of organisations/apps were found which provide advice, tutorials or direct assistance with cosmetics use and makeup application in particular. However, there were no reports of products and services within the remits of the cosmetic industry designed to assist the VI and blind users other than one brand adding Braille to product packaging. A range of technologies aimed at providing personalised cosmetic product choice were identified, however only one app was focused on helping such consumers with lipstick application. The survey showed that the VI and blind consumers used a variety of makeup products for reasons such as feeling good, looking professional, and simply because this is what sighted people do. Their choice of products was mostly driven by ease of use and brand familiarity, but sensory characteristics were also referred to. As lipstick was the most commonly used product, the colour was also an important choice factor. Shopping and finding the right product in store were considered easier than shopping online. The combination of primary and secondary data suggests that the use of cosmetics amongst VI and blind consumers could be encouraged in many ways: by improving the accessibility of product information – in store and online; by the design of accessible systems and applications which facilitate reliable product choice (colour and other desirable performance attributes); by offering access to affordable personalised products

Designing and Evaluating Accessible E-Learning for Students with Visual Impairments in K-12 Computing Education

This dissertation explores the pathways for making K-12 computing education more accessible for blind or visually impaired (BVI) learners. As computer science (CS) expands into K-12 education, more concerted efforts are required to ensure all students have equitable access to opportunities to pursue a career in computing. To determine their viability with BVI learners, I conducted three studies to assess current accessibility in CS curricula, materials, and learning environments. Study one was interviews with visually impaired developers; study two was interviews with K-12 teachers of visually impaired students; study three was a remote observation within a computer science course. My exploration revealed that most of CS education lacks the necessary accommodations for BVI students to learn at an equitable pace with sighted students. However, electronic learning (e-learning) was a theme that showed to provide the most accessible learning experience for BVI students, although even there, usability and accessibility challenges were present in online learning platforms. My dissertation engaged in a human-centered approach across three studies towards designing, developing, and evaluating an online learning management system (LMS) with the critical design elements to improve navigation and interaction with BVI users. Study one was a survey exploring the perception of readiness for taking online courses between sighted and visually impaired students. The findings from the survey fueled study two, which employed participatory design with storytelling with K-12 teachers and BVI students to learn more about their experiences using LMSs and how they imagine such systems to be more accessible. The findings led to developing the accessible learning content management system (ALCMS), a web-based platform for managing courses, course content, and course roster, evaluated in study three with high school students, both sighted and visually impaired, to determine its usability and accessibility. This research contributes with recommendations for including features and design elements to improve accessibility in existing LMSs and building new ones

Haptic Media Scenes

The aim of this thesis is to apply new media phenomenological and enactive embodied cognition approaches to explain the role of haptic sensitivity and communication in personal computer environments for productivity. Prior theory has given little attention to the role of haptic senses in influencing cognitive processes, and do not frame the richness of haptic communication in interaction design—as haptic interactivity in HCI has historically tended to be designed and analyzed from a perspective on communication as transmissions, sending and receiving haptic signals. The haptic sense may not only mediate contact confirmation and affirmation, but also rich semiotic and affective messages—yet this is a strong contrast between this inherent ability of haptic perception, and current day support for such haptic communication interfaces. I therefore ask: How do the haptic senses (touch and proprioception) impact our cognitive faculty when mediated through digital and sensor technologies? How may these insights be employed in interface design to facilitate rich haptic communication? To answer these questions, I use theoretical close readings that embrace two research fields, new media phenomenology and enactive embodied cognition. The theoretical discussion is supported by neuroscientific evidence, and tested empirically through case studies centered on digital art. I use these insights to develop the concept of the haptic figura, an analytical tool to frame the communicative qualities of haptic media. The concept gauges rich machine- mediated haptic interactivity and communication in systems with a material solution supporting active haptic perception, and the mediation of semiotic and affective messages that are understood and felt. As such the concept may function as a design tool for developers, but also for media critics evaluating haptic media. The tool is used to frame a discussion on opportunities and shortcomings of haptic interfaces for productivity, differentiating between media systems for the hand and the full body. The significance of this investigation is demonstrating that haptic communication is an underutilized element in personal computer environments for productivity and providing an analytical framework for a more nuanced understanding of haptic communication as enabling the mediation of a range of semiotic and affective messages, beyond notification and confirmation interactivity

The embodied user : corporeal awareness & media technology

Human beings are proficient users of tools and technology. At times, our interactions with a technological artifact appear so effortless, that the distinction between the artifact and the body starts to fade. When operating anthropomorphically designed teleoperation systems, for example, some people develop the vivid experience that they are physically there at the remote site (i.e., telepresence). Others might even come to sense the slave robot’s arms and hands as their own. The process in which the central nervous system categorizes an object as a part of the body, and in which a discrimination is made between what is contained within and outside the bodily boundaries, is called self-attribution. The aim of this thesis is twofold: (a) To determine the personal factors (e.g., the characteristics of an individual’s psychological makeup) and situational factors (e.g., the appearance of objects) that constrain or facilitate self-attribution, and (b) to determine the degree to which these factors affect people’s experiences with media technology. In Chapter 2, we describe the theoretical framework of our research which is centered on a conception of the user of technology as an embodied agent. In this chapter we distinguish two important, but often confused aspects of embodiment: the body schema, and the body image. The body schema is defined as a dynamic distributed network of procedures aimed at guiding behavior. In contrast, we defined the body image as a part of the process of consciousness and, thus, as consisting of those higher-order discriminations (or qualia) that pertain to the body, and one’s self-perception thereof. To investigate the individual and situational factors that constrain or facilitate selfattribution (i.e., incorporation into the body image), we employ the experimental paradigm of the rubber-hand illusion (Botvinick & Cohen, 1998). In this illusion, which is induced by stroking a person’s concealed hand together with a visible fake one, some people start to sense the fake hand as an actual part of their body. In Chapter 3, we investigate the rubberhand illusion under two mediated conditions: (1) a virtual reality condition, where both the fake hand and its stimulation were projected on the table in front of the participant, and (2) a mixed reality condition, where the fake hand was projected, but its stimulation was unmediated. Our experiment reveals that people can develop the rubber-hand illusion under mediated conditions, but the resulting illusion may, depending on the technology used, be less vivid than in the traditional unmediated setup. In Chapter 4, we investigate the extent to which visual discrepancies between the foreign object and a human hand affect people in developing a vivid rubber-hand illusion. We found that people experience a more vivid illusion when the foreign object resembles the human hand in terms of both shape and texture. Taken together, the experiments in Chapters 3 and 4 support the view that the rubber-hand illusion is not merely governed by a bottom-up process (i.e., based on visuotactile integration), but is affected, top-down, by a cognitive representation of what the human body is like (e.g., Tsakiris and Haggard, 2005). In the rubber-hand illusion, people commonly misperceive the location of their concealed hand toward the direction of the fake hand (Tsakiris & Haggard, 2005). As such, this so-called proprioceptive drift is often used as an alternative to self-reports in assessing the vividness of the illusion (e.g., Tsakiris & Haggard, 2005). In Chapter 5, we investigate the extent to which the observed shift in felt position of the concealed hand can be attributed to experiencing the illusion. For this purpose, we test how various features of the experimental setup of the rubber-hand illusion, which in themselves are not sufficient to elicit the illusion, affect proprioceptive drift. We corroborate existing research which demonstrates that looking at a fake hand or a tabletop for five minutes, in absence of visuotactile stimulation, is sufficient to induce a change in the felt position of an unseen hand (e.g., Gross et al., 1974). Moreover, our experiments indicate that the use of proprioceptive drift as a measure for the strength of the rubber-hand illusion yields different conclusions than an assessment by means of self-reports. Based on these results, we question the validity of proprioceptive drift as an alternative measure of the vividness of the rubber-hand illusion. In Chapter 6, we propose and test a model of the vividness of the rubber-hand illusion. In two experiments, we successfully modeled people’s self-reported experiences related to the illusion (e.g., "the fake hand felt as my own") based on three estimates: (a) a person’s susceptibility for the rubber-hand illusion, (b) the processing demand that is required for a particular experience, and (c) the suppression/constraints imposed by the situation. We demonstrate that the impressions related to the rubber-hand illusion, and by inference the processes behind them, are comparable for different persons. This is a non-trivial finding as such invariance is required for an objective scaling of individual susceptibility and situational impediment on the basis of self-reported experiences. Regarding the validity of our vividness model, we confirm that asynchrony (e.g., Botvinick & Cohen, 1998) and information-poor stimulation (e.g., Armel & Ramachandran, 2003) constrain the development of a vivid rubber-hand illusion. Moreover, we demonstrate that the correlation between a person’s susceptibility for the rubber-hand illusion and the extent of his of her proprioceptive drift is fairly moderate, thereby confirming our conclusions from Chapter 5 regarding the limited validity of proprioceptive drift as a measure of the vividness of the rubber-hand illusion. In Chapter 7, we investigate the extent to which the large individual differences in people’s susceptibility for the illusion can be explained by body image instability, and the ability to engage in motor imagery of the hand (i.e., in mental own hand transformations). In addition, we investigate whether the vividness of the illusion is dependent on the anatomical implausibility of the fake hand’s orientation. With respect to body image instability, we corroborate a small, but significant, correlation between susceptibility and body image aberration scores: As expected, people with a more unstable body image are also more susceptible to the rubber-hand illusion (cf. Burrack & Brugger, 2005). With respect to the position and orientation of the fake hand on the table, we demonstrate that people experience a less vivid rubber-hand illusion when the fake hand is orientated in an anatomically impossible, as compared to an anatomically possible manner. This finding suggests that the attribution of foreign objects to the self is constrained by the morphological capabilities of the human body. With respect to motor imagery, our results indicate a small, but significant, correlation between susceptibility and response times to a speeded left and right hands identification task. In other words, people who are more attuned to engage in mental own hand transformations are also better equipped to develop vivid rubber-hand illusions. In Chapter 8, we examine the role of self-attribution in the experience of telepresence. For this purpose, we introduce the technological domain of mediated social touch (i.e., interpersonal touching over a distance). We anticipated that, compared to a morphologically incongruent input medium, a morphologically congruent medium would be more easily attributed to the self. As a result, we expected our participants to develop a stronger sense of telepresence when they could see their interaction partner performing the touches on a sensor-equipped mannequin as opposed to a touch screen. Our participants, as expected, reported higher levels of telepresence, and demonstrated more physiological arousal with the mannequin input medium. At the same time, our experiment revealed that these effects might not have resulted from self-attribution, and thus that other psychological mechanisms of identification might play a role in telepresence experiences. In Chapter 9, the epilogue, we discuss the main contributions and limitations of this thesis, while taking a broader perspective on the field of research on media technologies and corporeal awareness

Augmented Reality in Sport Broadcasting

For a large portion of its history, sport broadcasting has been stagnant when it comes to incorporating new and innovative technologies. However, due to declining viewership and consumer desire for customizable content, augmented reality graphics have begun to be incorporated into multiple sport broadcast products. In fact, the UEFA Champions League, NBA, NFL, and NHL have all used or indicated their intention to utilize AR graphics in future broadcasts. Considering that media rights revenue is the main source of revenue to sport properties and organizations, it is important to carefully consider how the core product (the broadcast) is presented. The study examined consumer attitudes and intentions towards AR in sport broadcasts by utilizing three types of broadcasts of an NBA game. One of the broadcasts was a traditional broadcast format with no AR enhancement and the other two were enhanced with AR graphics, a coach-mode broadcast that featured AR player tracking and play diagramming while the other enhanced broadcast, mascot-mode, featured AR graphics similar to a video game with over-the-top animations. Results of the current study provide insight into consumer preferences towards AR in sport broadcasting and guidance to sport properties planning to utilize broadcast AR graphics. Specifically, that sport consumers were significantly more likely to re-view (p \u3c .05) and recommend via word of mouth (p \u3c .05) the coach-mode AR than the mascot-mode AR. Sport involvement was a significant factor for how sport fans perceive the AR broadcast types through incorporating the perspective of the elaboration likelihood model

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities

Me, Myself, and Interface: The Role of Affordances in Digital Visual Self-Representational Practices

A growing number of digital games and virtual worlds allow users to create a virtual self, commonly referred to as an ‘avatar.’ Essentially, the avatar is a digital entity which is controlled by the user to attain agency within the virtual world. Avatars are visually customized by users via interfaces, referred to within the body of this work as Character Creation Interfaces (CCIs). CCIs are often framed as tools that are utilized by players to create a desired avatar. In other words, the popular approach is one that is anthropocentric in nature and neglects to take into account the ways in which interface affordances - the action possibilities afforded by an artifact - potentially constrain our interactions with them. In my dissertation, I argue that CCIs co-construct avatars with players. I mobilize Actor-Network Theory in order to re-position these interfaces as actors, rather than benign tools in digital-visual self-representational practices. In order to investigate the interface-as-actor I present an analytical framework: the Avatar Affordances Framework, and apply this framework to 20 CCIs in order to systematically study their affordances. In the second phase of this investigation, I present data on two user studies: the first, a within-subjects study investigating self-representational practices in the Massively-Multiplayer-Onlne-Game (MMOG) Rift (n = 39), the other, a between-subjects study of self-representational practices on the Nintendo WiiU console's MiiCreator (n = 24). Results of these two studies are presented alongside analytical data derived from both interfaces via the Avatar Affordances Framework in order to illustrate how interface affordances are negotiated by players. A final study, an autoethnographic chapter, situates myself within the dissertation as both a researcher and user of the technology, addressing how my own experiences with these games, and my own self-representational practices, have come to shape this research. Data from the aforementioned studies was then utilized in order to generate a list of best practices for game developers. To date, such documentation is absent from game design literature. It is my hope that the practices outlined herein help developers make design choices that invite opportunities for identity play without simultaneously creating socially exclusive spaces