1,671 research outputs found

    CoUIM: crossover user interface model for inclusive computing

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    Persons with disabilities can face considerable challenges accessing many computing systems, such as cloud computing. We created six low-cost user interfaces using: keyboard-based, touchable, speech-based, touch-less gesture, tactile, and then combined them all in one user interface termed Crossover User Interface Model (CoUIM). We measured inclusiveness, error occurrence, user performance, and user satisfaction though an IRB approved study of twenty-nine participants. We chose Xen cloud platform to evaluate our research. We focused on three groups of users: persons with no disability, persons with blind and visually impairment (B/VI), and persons with motor-impairment. When we combined several interactions in one user interface, results improved for persons with disability. Using CoUIM improved inclusiveness, error rate, user performance and even user satisfaction. Persons with motor disability needed a little more time to complete the same tasks in our study. In particular, we show that persons with blind and visually impairment (B/VI) can compete on equal footing with their sighted peers based on error rate and time to complete the tasks using CoUIM

    Research and Industry Practices in Designing Clothes for Optimal Participation of Persons with a Physical Disability

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    Contexte : Les vêtements sont importants dans la société et favorisent la participation des personnes ayant des déficiences physiques. Il existe peu d’information indiquant si l’industrie de la mode comprend leurs besoins. Objectifs : 1) Examiner le rôle des vêtements sur la participation des personnes ayant une déficience physique. 2) Explorer les perspectives des représentants de l'industrie de la mode vis à vis la littérature ainsi que les facteurs influençant la mobilisation des connaissances. Méthodologie : 1) Un examen de la portée a été réalisé à partir de six bases de données scientifiques, Google et plusieurs consultations d’experts. 2) Des entretiens semi-structurés ont été menés auprès des représentants de l'industrie de la mode. Résultats : 1) Cinquante-sept articles et 88 sites Web ont été sélectionnés. Des problèmes vestimentaires affectant la mobilité et les soins ressortaient fréquemment ainsi que divers facteurs personnels. Quarante-neuf pourcent des articles décrivaient des caractéristiques essentielles à la conception de vêtements adaptés. 2) Cinq entrevues révèlent l’importance de l’acquisition des connaissances pour concevoir des vêtements adaptés. Des barrières de temps, de fabrication et de commercialisation ont été identifiées au sein de l’industrie. Plus de ressources, de visibilité, de consultation et d’engagement de l’industrie permettraient des avancées dans le domaine du vêtement adapté. Conclusion : Les vêtements influencent de façon multidimensionnelle la participation des personnes. Un meilleur partenariat entre les chercheurs, les cliniciens, les personnes ayant des déficiences et l’industrie de la mode pourrait améliorer la conception de vêtement adaptés.Background: Clothing is important in human societies and could play a central role in optimizing participation of persons with physical disabilities. It is unclear whether the fashion industry understands the clothing needs of these individuals. Objectives: 1) Examine the role of clothing on participation of persons with physical disabilities, 2) Explore perspectives of representatives of the fashion industry vis à vis the literature and factors influencing uptake of this knowledge. Methodology: 1) A scoping review including six research databases, Google, and multiple expert consultations was performed. 2) Semi-structured interviews with fashion industry representatives were conducted. Results: 1) Fifty-seven articles and 88 websites were retrieved. Clothing-related issues impacting Mobility and Self-Care were frequently reported as were various personal factors. Forty-nine percent of articles reported essential clothing design features. 2) Five interviews found that acquiring knowledge for designing adapted clothing is important and time-, manufacturing-, marketing-, and purchasing-related barriers exist in the industry. Increased resources, exposure, guidance, and engagement within the fashion industry may help advance the field of adapted clothing. Conclusion: Clothing has a multidimensional influence on participation. Solidifying collaborations between researchers, clinicians, persons with disabilities, and the fashion industry may add credibility to future clothing designs

    Developing Accessible Services:Understanding Current Knowledge and Areas for Future Support

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    When creating digital artefacts, it is important to ensure that the product being made is accessible to as much of the population as is possible. Many guidelines and supporting tools exist to assist reaching this goal. However, little is known about developers’ understanding of accessible practice and the methods that are used to implement this.We present findings from an accessibility design workshop that was carried out with a mixture of 197 developers and digital technology students. We discuss perceptions of accessibility, techniques that are used when designing accessible products, and what areas of accessibility development participants believed were important. We show that there are gaps in the knowledge needed to develop accessible products despite the effort to promote accessible design. Our participants are themselves aware of where these gaps are and have suggested a number of areas where tools, techniques and guidance would improve their practice

    Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

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    This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion

    Accessibility of Health Data Representations for Older Adults: Challenges and Opportunities for Design

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    Health data of consumer off-the-shelf wearable devices is often conveyed to users through visual data representations and analyses. However, this is not always accessible to people with disabilities or older people due to low vision, cognitive impairments or literacy issues. Due to trade-offs between aesthetics predominance or information overload, real-time user feedback may not be conveyed easily from sensor devices through visual cues like graphs and texts. These difficulties may hinder critical data understanding. Additional auditory and tactile feedback can also provide immediate and accessible cues from these wearable devices, but it is necessary to understand existing data representation limitations initially. To avoid higher cognitive and visual overload, auditory and haptic cues can be designed to complement, replace or reinforce visual cues. In this paper, we outline the challenges in existing data representation and the necessary evidence to enhance the accessibility of health information from personal sensing devices used to monitor health parameters such as blood pressure, sleep, activity, heart rate and more. By creating innovative and inclusive user feedback, users will likely want to engage and interact with new devices and their own data

    Aplicación dos produtos de apoio de alta tecnoloxía no desempeño ocupacional das persoas con discapacidade visual: scoping review

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    [Resumo] Introdución: As persoas con discapacidade visual poden experimentar dificultades na realización de diferentes ocupacións cotiás. A tecnoloxía de apoio (TA) debe actuar coma un facilitador na participación desta poboación en actividades desexadas. Obxectivo: Coñecer se os produtos de apoio de alta tecnoloxía dan resposta ás dificultades no desempeño ocupacional coas que se atopan máis frecuentemente as persoas con discapacidade visual no seu día a día. Metodoloxía: Seguiuse unha metodoloxía de revisión de alcance. A busca bibliográfica foi levada a cabo nas bases de datos CINAHL, PubMed, Scopus e Web of Science. As variables temáticas establecéronse seguindo os compoñentes propostos polo Modelo da Actividade Humana e da Tecnoloxía de Apoio. Para a súa análise empregouse un enfoque mixto. Resultados: Na mostra incluíronse un total de 44 estudos. En moitos casos, non se especificou certa información relativa ás persoas participantes. A TA analizada centrouse principalmente na detección e na evitación de obstáculos, facilitando a mobilidade funcional. Os dispositivos reciben a información mediante sistemas de cámaras para transmitirlla á persoa por son. A TA está deseñada para contextos tanto interiores coma exteriores da vida diaria, e foi testada maiormente en ambientes reais. Conclusión: Os produtos de apoio de alta tecnoloxía están dirixidos principalmente a facilitar a mobilidade funcional, a participación social, e a lectura das persoas con discapacidade visual. En menor medida, abordaron a educación, o deporte e as tarefas do fogar. Así, non se centraron noutras actividades relevantes como a condución ou o emprego.[Resumen] Introducción: Las personas con discapacidad visual pueden experimentan dificultades en la realización de diferentes ocupaciones cotidianas. La tecnología de apoyo (TA) debe actuar como un facilitador en la participación de esta población en actividades deseadas. Objetivo: Conocer si los productos de apoyo de alta tecnología dan respuesta a las dificultades en el desempeño ocupacional con las que se encuentran más frecuentemente las personas con discapacidad visual en su día a día. Metodología: Se siguió una metodología de revisión de alcance. La búsqueda bibliográfica se llevó a cabo en las bases de datos CINAHL, PubMed, Scopus y Web of Science. Las variables temáticas se establecieron siguiendo los componentes propuestos por el Modelo de la Actividad Humana y la Tecnología de Apoyo. Para su análisis se empleó un enfoque mixto. Resultados: En la muestra se incluyeron un total de 44 estudios. En muchos casos, no se especificó cierta información relativa a las personas participantes. La TA analizada se centró principalmente en la detección y evitación de obstáculos, facilitando la movilidad funcional. Los dispositivos reciben la información mediante sistemas de cámaras para transmitírsela a la persona por audio. La TA está diseñada para contextos tanto interiores como exteriores de la vida diaria, y fue testada mayormente en ambientes reales. Conclusión: Los productos de apoyo de alta tecnología están dirigidos principalmente a facilitar la movilidad funcional, la participación social, y la lectura de las personas con discapacidad visual. En menor medida, abordaron la educación, el deporte, o las tareas del hogar. Así, no se centraron en otras actividades relevantes como la conducción o el empleo.[Abstract] Background: People with visual impairment can have difficulties in performing different daily occupations. Assistive technology (AT) should be an enabler in the participation of these population’s desired activities. Aim: To know if high-tech assistive devices respond to difficulties in the occupational performance that people with visual impairment most frequently experiment in their day-to-day lives. Methodology: A methodology of Scoping Review was used. The bibliographic search was carried out in the databases CINAHL, PubMed, Scopus y Web of Science. Thematic variables were established following the components proposed by the Human Activity Assistive Technology Model. For their analyses, a mixed methods approach was used. Results: A total of 44 studies were included in the sample. In many cases, certain information regarding the participants was not specified. The analyzed AT focused mainly on the detection and avoidance of obstacles, facilitating functional mobility. The devices receive the information through camera systems to transmit it to the person by audio. The AT is designed for indoor and outdoor contexts of everyday life, and it was mostly tested in real-world environments. Conclusion: The high-tech assistive devices are primarily aimed at facilitating the functional mobility, social participation, and reading of people with visual impairment. To a lesser extent, they addressed education, sports, or housework. However, they did not focus on other relevant activities such as driving or working.Traballo fin de mestrado (UDC.FCS). Asistencia e investigación sanitaria. Especialidade en Reeducación Funcional, Autonomía Persoal e Calidade de Vida. Curso 2020-202

    Program Comprehension Through Sonification

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    Background: Comprehension of computer programs is daunting, thanks in part to clutter in the software developer's visual environment and the need for frequent visual context changes. Non-speech sound has been shown to be useful in understanding the behavior of a program as it is running. Aims: This thesis explores whether using sound to help understand the static structure of programs is viable and advantageous. Method: A novel concept for program sonification is introduced. Non-speech sounds indicate characteristics of and relationships among a Java program's classes, interfaces, and methods. A sound mapping is incorporated into a prototype tool consisting of an extension to the Eclipse integrated development environment communicating with the sound engine Csound. Developers examining source code can aurally explore entities outside of the visual context. A rich body of sound techniques provides expanded representational possibilities. Two studies were conducted. In the first, software professionals participated in exploratory sessions to informally validate the sound mapping concept. The second study was a human-subjects experiment to discover whether using the tool and sound mapping improve performance of software comprehension tasks. Twenty-four software professionals and students performed maintenance-oriented tasks on two Java programs with and without sound. Results: Viability is strong for differentiation and characterization of software entities, less so for identification. The results show no overall advantage of using sound in terms of task duration at a 5% level of significance. The results do, however, suggest that sonification can be advantageous under certain conditions. Conclusions: The use of sound in program comprehension shows sufficient promise for continued research. Limitations of the present research include restriction to particular types of comprehension tasks, a single sound mapping, a single programming language, and limited training time. Future work includes experiments and case studies employing a wider set of comprehension tasks, sound mappings in domains other than software, and adding navigational capability for use by the visually impaired

    Respect in Organizations: Feeling Valued as “We” and “Me”

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    Research suggests that organizational members highly prize respect but rarely report adequately receiving it. However, there is a lack of theory in organizational behavior regarding what respect actually is and why members prize it. We argue that there are two distinct types of respect: generalized respect is the sense that “we” are all valued in this organization, and particularized respect is the sense that the organization values “me” for particular attributes, behaviors, and achievements. We build a theoretical model of respect, positing antecedents of generalized respect from the sender’s perspective (prestige of social category, climate for generalized respect) and proposed criteria for the evaluation of particularized respect (role, organizational member, and character prototypicality), which is then enacted by the sender and perceived by the receiver. We also articulate how these two types of respect fulfill the receiver’s needs for belonging and status, which facilitates the self-related outcomes of organization-based self-esteem, organizational and role identification, and psychological safety. Finally, we consider generalized and personalized respect jointly and present four combinations of the two types of respect. We argue that the discrepancy between organizational members’ desired and received respect is partially attributable to the challenge of simultaneously enacting or receiving respect for both the “we” and the “me.
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