8,593 research outputs found

    Working Effectively with People who are Blind or Visually Impaired

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    This brochure on peoples who are blind or visually impaired and The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is one of a series on human resources practices and workplace accommodations for persons with disabilities edited by Susanne M. Bruyère, Ph.D., CRC, SPHR, Director, Program on Employment and Disability, School of Industrial and Labor Relations – Extension Division, Cornell University

    Working Effectively with People who are Blind or Visually Impaired

    Get PDF
    This brochure on peoples who are blind or visually impaired and The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is one of a series on human resources practices and workplace accommodations for persons with disabilities edited by Susanne M. Bruyère, Ph.D., CRC, SPHR, Director, Program on Employment and Disability, School of Industrial and Labor Relations – Extension Division, Cornell University. Cornell University was funded in the early 1990’s by the U.S. Department of Education National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research as a National Materials Development Project on the employment provisions (Title I) of the ADA (Grant #H133D10155). These updates, and the development of new brochures, have been funded by Cornell’s Program on Employment and Disability

    A framework for accessible m-government implementation

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    The great popularity and rapid diffusion of mobile technologies at worldwide level has also been recognised by the public sector, leading to the creation of m-government. A major challenge for m-government is accessibility – the provision of an equal service to all citizens irrespective of their psychical, mental or technical capabilities. This paper sketches the profiles of six citizen groups: Visually Impaired, Hearing Impaired, Motor Impaired, Speech Impaired, Cognitive Impaired and Elderly. M-government examples that target the aforementioned groups are discussed and a framework for accessible m-government implementation with reference to the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices is proposed

    Developing brain-body interfaces for the visually impaired

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    Computer-assisted acquisition of information for visually impaired

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    The study examines various uses of computer technology in acquisition of information for visually impaired people. For this study 29 visually impaired persons took part in a survey about their experiences concerning acquisition of infomation and use of computers, especially with a screen magnification program, a speech synthesizer and a braille display. According to the responses, the evolution of computer technology offers an important possibility for visually impaired people to cope with everyday activities and interacting with the environment. Nevertheless, the functionality of assistive technology needs further development to become more usable and versatile. Since the challenges of independent observation of environment were emphasized in the survey, the study led into developing a portable text vision system called Tekstinäkö. Contrary to typical stand-alone applications, Tekstinäkö system was constructed by combining devices and programs that are readily available on consumer market. As the system operates, pictures are taken by a digital camera and instantly transmitted to a text recognition program in a laptop computer that talks out loud the text using a speech synthesizer. Visually impaired test users described that even unsure interpretations of the texts in the environment given by Tekstinäkö system are at least a welcome addition to complete perception of the environment. It became clear that even with a modest development work it is possible to bring new, useful and valuable methods to everyday life of disabled people. Unconventional production process of the system appeared to be efficient as well. Achieved results and the proposed working model offer one suggestion for giving enough attention to easily overlooked needs of the people with special abilities. ACM Computing Classification System (1998): K.4.2 Social Issues: Assistive technologies for persons with disabilities I.4.9 Image processing and computer vision: ApplicationsTutkielma tarkastelee tietotekniikan erilaisia käyttötapoja näkövammaisten tiedon hankinnassa. Tutkielmaa varten tehdyllä kyselyllä kartoitettiin 29 näkövammaisen kokemuksia tiedon hankinnasta ja tietokoneen käytöstä erityisesti hyödyntäen ruudun suurennusohjelmaa, puhesyntetisaattoria ja pistenäyttöä. Vastausten perusteella tietotekniikan kehitys tarjoaa näkövammaisille tärkeän mahdollisuuden edistää arjen askareita ja vuorovaikutteisuutta ympäristöön. Kuitenkin esimerkiksi apuvälineiden toiminnallisuutta tulisi kehittää entistä havainnollisemmaksi ja monipuolisemmaksi. Kun ympäristön omatoimisen havainnoinnin haasteet korostuivat kyselyssä, osana tutkimusta kehitettiin mukana kuljetettava Tekstinäkö-järjestelmä. Perinteisestä omavaraisesta tuotantotavasta poiketen Tekstinäkö-järjestelmä koostettiin kuluttajamarkkinoilla olevista valmiista laitteista ja ohjelmista. Järjestelmässä digitaalikameralla otettavat kuvat johdetaan tuoreeltaan kannettavassa tietokoneessa toimivaan tekstintunnistusohjelmaan, ja kuvista tulkitut tekstit lausutaan puhesyntetisaattorilla. Näkövammaiset koekäyttäjät kuvailivat kehitetyn järjestelmän antamia epävarmojakin tulkintoja ympäristön teksteistä vähintään tervetulleeksi lisäksi täydentämään näkymän hahmottamista. Tuli ilmi, että jo pienelläkin kehitystyöllä voidaan vammaisten arkeen tuoda hyödyllisiä ja arvokkaitakin uusia menetelmiä. Myös järjestelmän ennakkoluuloton tuotantotapa osoittautui tehokkaaksi. Saadut tulokset ja esitetty toimintamalli tarjoavat eväitä helposti katveeseen jäävien erityisryhmien tarpeiden huomioimiseksi niille kuuluvalla painokkuudella nyt ja vastaisuudessa. ACM Computing Classification System (1998) -luokitus: K.4.2 Social Issues: Assistive technologies for persons with disabilities I.4.9 Image processing and computer vision: Application
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