Enabling Seamless Access to Digital Graphical Contents for Visually Impaired Individuals via Semantic-Aware Processing

Vision is one of the main sources through which people obtain information from the world, but unfortunately, visually-impaired people are partially or completely deprived of this type of information. With the help of computer technologies, people with visual impairment can independently access digital textual information by using text-to-speech and text-to-Braille software. However, in general, there still exists a major barrier for people who are blind to access the graphical information independently in real-time without the help of sighted people. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-level and multi-modal approach aiming at addressing this challenging and practical problem, with the key idea being semantic-aware visual-to-tactile conversion through semantic image categorization and segmentation, and semantic-driven image simplification. An end-to-end prototype system was built based on the approach. We present the details of the approach and the system, report sample experimental results with realistic data, and compare our approach with current typical practice

Modeling 4.0: Conceptual Modeling in a Digital Era

Digitization provides entirely new affordances for our economies and societies. This leads to previously unseen design opportunities and complexities as systems and their boundaries are re-defined, creating a demand for appropriate methods to support design that caters to these new demands. Conceptual modeling is an established means for this, but it needs to be advanced to adequately depict the requirements of digitization. However, unlike the actual deployment of digital technologies in various industries, the domain of conceptual modeling itself has not yet undergone a comprehensive renewal in light of digitization. Therefore, inspired by the notion of Industry 4.0, an overarching concept for digital manufacturing, in this commentary paper, we propose Modeling 4.0 as the notion for conceptual modeling mechanisms in a digital environment. In total, 12 mechanisms of conceptual modeling are distinguished, providing ample guidance for academics and professionals interested in ensuring that modeling techniques and methods continue to fit contemporary and emerging requirements

Touch- and Walkable Virtual Reality to Support Blind and Visually Impaired Peoples‘ Building Exploration in the Context of Orientation and Mobility

Der Zugang zu digitalen Inhalten und Informationen wird immer wichtiger für eine erfolgreiche Teilnahme an der heutigen, zunehmend digitalisierten Zivilgesellschaft. Solche Informationen werden meist visuell präsentiert, was den Zugang für blinde und sehbehinderte Menschen einschränkt. Die grundlegendste Barriere ist oft die elementare Orientierung und Mobilität (und folglich die soziale Mobilität), einschließlich der Erlangung von Kenntnissen über unbekannte Gebäude vor deren Besuch. Um solche Barrieren zu überbrücken, sollten technische Hilfsmittel entwickelt und eingesetzt werden. Es ist ein Kompromiss zwischen technologisch niedrigschwellig zugänglichen und verbreitbaren Hilfsmitteln und interaktiv-adaptiven, aber komplexen Systemen erforderlich. Die Anpassung der Technologie der virtuellen Realität (VR) umfasst ein breites Spektrum an Entwicklungs- und Entscheidungsoptionen. Die Hauptvorteile der VR-Technologie sind die erhöhte Interaktivität, die Aktualisierbarkeit und die Möglichkeit, virtuelle Räume und Modelle als Abbilder von realen Räumen zu erkunden, ohne dass reale Gefahren und die begrenzte Verfügbarkeit von sehenden Helfern auftreten. Virtuelle Objekte und Umgebungen haben jedoch keine physische Beschaffenheit. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es daher zu erforschen, welche VR-Interaktionsformen sinnvoll sind (d.h. ein angemessenes Verbreitungspotenzial bieten), um virtuelle Repräsentationen realer Gebäude im Kontext von Orientierung und Mobilität berührbar oder begehbar zu machen. Obwohl es bereits inhaltlich und technisch disjunkte Entwicklungen und Evaluationen zur VR-Technologie gibt, fehlt es an empirischer Evidenz. Zusätzlich bietet diese Arbeit einen Überblick über die verschiedenen Interaktionen. Nach einer Betrachtung der menschlichen Physiologie, Hilfsmittel (z.B. taktile Karten) und technologischen Eigenschaften wird der aktuelle Stand der Technik von VR vorgestellt und die Anwendung für blinde und sehbehinderte Nutzer und der Weg dorthin durch die Einführung einer neuartigen Taxonomie diskutiert. Neben der Interaktion selbst werden Merkmale des Nutzers und des Geräts, der Anwendungskontext oder die nutzerzentrierte Entwicklung bzw. Evaluation als Klassifikatoren herangezogen. Begründet und motiviert werden die folgenden Kapitel durch explorative Ansätze, d.h. im Bereich 'small scale' (mit sogenannten Datenhandschuhen) und im Bereich 'large scale' (mit einer avatargesteuerten VR-Fortbewegung). Die folgenden Kapitel führen empirische Studien mit blinden und sehbehinderten Nutzern durch und geben einen formativen Einblick, wie virtuelle Objekte in Reichweite der Hände mit haptischem Feedback erfasst werden können und wie verschiedene Arten der VR-Fortbewegung zur Erkundung virtueller Umgebungen eingesetzt werden können. Daraus werden geräteunabhängige technologische Möglichkeiten und auch Herausforderungen für weitere Verbesserungen abgeleitet. Auf der Grundlage dieser Erkenntnisse kann sich die weitere Forschung auf Aspekte wie die spezifische Gestaltung interaktiver Elemente, zeitlich und räumlich kollaborative Anwendungsszenarien und die Evaluation eines gesamten Anwendungsworkflows (d.h. Scannen der realen Umgebung und virtuelle Erkundung zu Trainingszwecken sowie die Gestaltung der gesamten Anwendung in einer langfristig barrierefreien Weise) konzentrieren.Access to digital content and information is becoming increasingly important for successful participation in today's increasingly digitized civil society. Such information is mostly presented visually, which restricts access for blind and visually impaired people. The most fundamental barrier is often basic orientation and mobility (and consequently, social mobility), including gaining knowledge about unknown buildings before visiting them. To bridge such barriers, technological aids should be developed and deployed. A trade-off is needed between technologically low-threshold accessible and disseminable aids and interactive-adaptive but complex systems. The adaptation of virtual reality (VR) technology spans a wide range of development and decision options. The main benefits of VR technology are increased interactivity, updatability, and the possibility to explore virtual spaces as proxies of real ones without real-world hazards and the limited availability of sighted assistants. However, virtual objects and environments have no physicality. Therefore, this thesis aims to research which VR interaction forms are reasonable (i.e., offering a reasonable dissemination potential) to make virtual representations of real buildings touchable or walkable in the context of orientation and mobility. Although there are already content and technology disjunctive developments and evaluations on VR technology, there is a lack of empirical evidence. Additionally, this thesis provides a survey between different interactions. Having considered the human physiology, assistive media (e.g., tactile maps), and technological characteristics, the current state of the art of VR is introduced, and the application for blind and visually impaired users and the way to get there is discussed by introducing a novel taxonomy. In addition to the interaction itself, characteristics of the user and the device, the application context, or the user-centered development respectively evaluation are used as classifiers. Thus, the following chapters are justified and motivated by explorative approaches, i.e., in the group of 'small scale' (using so-called data gloves) and in the scale of 'large scale' (using an avatar-controlled VR locomotion) approaches. The following chapters conduct empirical studies with blind and visually impaired users and give formative insight into how virtual objects within hands' reach can be grasped using haptic feedback and how different kinds of VR locomotion implementation can be applied to explore virtual environments. Thus, device-independent technological possibilities and also challenges for further improvements are derived. On the basis of this knowledge, subsequent research can be focused on aspects such as the specific design of interactive elements, temporally and spatially collaborative application scenarios, and the evaluation of an entire application workflow (i.e., scanning the real environment and exploring it virtually for training purposes, as well as designing the entire application in a long-term accessible manner)

Towards evidence-based, GIS-driven national spatial health information infrastructure and surveillance services in the United Kingdom

The term "Geographic Information Systems" (GIS) has been added to MeSH in 2003, a step reflecting the importance and growing use of GIS in health and healthcare research and practices. GIS have much more to offer than the obvious digital cartography (map) functions. From a community health perspective, GIS could potentially act as powerful evidence-based practice tools for early problem detection and solving. When properly used, GIS can: inform and educate (professionals and the public); empower decision-making at all levels; help in planning and tweaking clinically and cost-effective actions, in predicting outcomes before making any financial commitments and ascribing priorities in a climate of finite resources; change practices; and continually monitor and analyse changes, as well as sentinel events. Yet despite all these potentials for GIS, they remain under-utilised in the UK National Health Service (NHS). This paper has the following objectives: (1) to illustrate with practical, real-world scenarios and examples from the literature the different GIS methods and uses to improve community health and healthcare practices, e.g., for improving hospital bed availability, in community health and bioterrorism surveillance services, and in the latest SARS outbreak; (2) to discuss challenges and problems currently hindering the wide-scale adoption of GIS across the NHS; and (3) to identify the most important requirements and ingredients for addressing these challenges, and realising GIS potential within the NHS, guided by related initiatives worldwide. The ultimate goal is to illuminate the road towards implementing a comprehensive national, multi-agency spatio-temporal health information infrastructure functioning proactively in real time. The concepts and principles presented in this paper can be also applied in other countries, and on regional (e.g., European Union) and global levels

User Interface Abstraction for enabling TV set based Inclusive Access to the Information Society

199 p.The television (TV) set is present in most homes worldwide, and is the most used Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Despite its large implantation in the market, the interactive services consumption on TV set is limited. This thesis focuses on overcoming the following limiting factors: (i) limited Human Computer Interaction and (ii) lack of considering user’s real life context in the digital television (dTV) service integration strategy. Making interactive services accessible to TV set’s large user base, and especially to the most vulnerable ones, is understood as the path to integrate the mankind with the information society. This thesis explores the use of user interface abstraction technologies to reach the introduced goals. The main contributions of this thesis are: (i) an approach to enable the universally accessible remote control of the TV set, (ii) an approach for the provision of universally accessible interactive services through TV sets, and (iii) an approach for the provision of universally accessible services in the TV user’s real life context. We have implemented the contributing approaches for different use cases, and we have evaluated them with real users, achieving good results

AXMEDIS 2008

The AXMEDIS International Conference series aims to explore all subjects and topics related to cross-media and digital-media content production, processing, management, standards, representation, sharing, protection and rights management, to address the latest developments and future trends of the technologies and their applications, impacts and exploitation. The AXMEDIS events offer venues for exchanging concepts, requirements, prototypes, research ideas, and findings which could contribute to academic research and also benefit business and industrial communities. In the Internet as well as in the digital era, cross-media production and distribution represent key developments and innovations that are fostered by emergent technologies to ensure better value for money while optimising productivity and market coverage

Investigando Natural User Interfaces (NUIs) : tecnologias e interação em contexto de acessibilidade

Orientador: Maria Cecília Calani BaranauskasTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de ComputaçãoResumo: Natural User Interfaces (NUIs) representam um novo paradigma de interação, com a promessa de ser mais intuitivo e fácil de usar do que seu antecessor, que utiliza mouse e teclado. Em um contexto no qual as tecnologias estão cada vez mais invisíveis e pervasivas, não só a quantidade mas também a diversidade de pessoas que participam deste contexto é crescente. Nesse caso, é preciso estudar como esse novo paradigma de interação de fato consegue ser acessível a todas as pessoas que podem utilizá-lo no dia-a-dia. Ademais, é preciso também caracterizar o paradigma em si, para entender o que o torna, de fato, natural. Portanto, nesta tese apresentamos o caminho que percorremos em busca dessas duas respostas: como caracterizar NUIs, no atual contexto tecnológico, e como tornar NUIs acessíveis para todos. Para tanto, primeiro apresentamos uma revisão sistemática de literatura com o estado da arte. Depois, mostramos um conjunto de heurísticas para o design e a avaliação de NUIs, que foram aplicadas em estudos de caso práticos. Em seguida, estruturamos as ideias desta pesquisa dentro dos artefatos da Semiótica Organizacional, e obtivemos esclarecimentos sobre como fazer o design de NUIs com Acessibilidade, seja por meio de Design Universal, seja para propor Tecnologias Assistivas. Depois, apresentamos três estudos de caso com sistemas NUI cujo design foi feito por nós. A partir desses estudos de caso, expandimos nosso referencial teórico e conseguimos, por fim, encontrar três elementos que resumem a nossa caracterização de NUI: diferenças, affordances e enaçãoAbstract: Natural User Interfaces (NUIs) represent a new interaction paradigm, with the promise of being more intuitive and easy to use than its predecessor, that utilizes mouse and keyboard. In a context where technology is becoming each time more invisible and pervasive, not only the amount but also the diversity of people who participate in this context is increasing. In this case, it must be studied how this new interaction paradigm can, in fact, be accessible to all the people who may use it on their daily routine. Furthermore, it is also necessary to characterize the paradigm itself, to understand what makes it, in fact, natural. Therefore, in this thesis we present the path we took in search of these two answers: how to characterize NUIs in the current technological context, and how to make NUIs accessible to all. To do so, first we present a systematic literature review with the state of the art. Then, we show a set of heuristics for the design and evaluation of NUIs, which were applied in practical study cases. Afterwards, we structure the ideas of this research into the Organizational Semiotics artifacts, and we obtain insights into how to design NUIs with Accessibility, be it through Universal Design, be it to propose Assistive Technologies. Then, we present three case studies with NUI systems which we designed. From these case studies, we expanded our theoretical references were able to, finally, find three elements that sum up our characterization of NUI: differences, affordances and enactionDoutoradoCiência da ComputaçãoDoutora em Ciência da Computação160911/2015-0CAPESCNP

USER INTERFACES FOR MOBILE DEVICES: TECHNIQUES AND CASE STUDIES

The interactive capabilities of portable devices that are nowadays increasingly available, enable mobile computing in diverse contexts. However, in order to fully exploit the potentialities of such technologies and to let end users benefit from them, effective and usable techniques are still needed. In general, differences in capabilities, such as computational power and interaction resources, lead to an heterogeneity that is sometimes positively referred to as device diversity but also, negatively, as device fragmentation. When designing applications for mobile devices, besides general rules and principles of usability, developers cope with further constraints. Restricted capabilities, due to display size, input modality and computational power, imply important design and implementation choices in order to guarantee usability. In addition, when the application is likely to be used by subjects affected by some impairment, the system has also to comply with accessibility requirements. The aim of this dissertation is to propose and discuss examples of such techniques, aimed to support user interfaces on mobile devices, by tackling design, development and evaluation of specific solutions for portable terminals as well as for enabling interoperability across diverse devices (including desktops, handhelds, smartphones). Usefulness and usability aspects are taken into great consideration by the main research questions that drove the activities of the study. With respect the such questions, the three central chapters of the dissertation are respectively aimed at evaluating: hardware/software solutions for edutainment and accessibility in mobile museum guides, visualization strategies for mobile users visiting smart environments, and techniques for user interface migration across diverse devices in multi-user contexts. Motivations, design, implementation and evaluation about a number of solutions aimed to support several dimensions of user interfaces for mobile devices are widely discussed throughout the dissertation, and some findings are drawn. Each one of the prototypes described in the following chapters has been entirely developed within the research activities of the laboratory where the author performed his PhD. Most activities were related to tasks of international research projects and the organization of this dissertation reflects their evolution chronology