CaseGuide: Making Cheap Smartphones Accessible to Individuals with Visual Impairments in Informal Settlements

Individuals with visual impairments in informal settlements (IVIIS) depend highly on others for access to basic services. Smartphones can help provide assistive technology and access to basic services but are too expensive for IVIIS or lack accessibility features. This study explores and promotes a low-cost concept that uses a static interface overlay app in conjunction with a button enabled phone case, to enable the use of cheap smartphones and increase IVIIS autonomy and inclusion in society. Using existing research and an observational study of YouTube videos, design requirements were determined. A low-fidelity prototype was developed and usertested on one visually impaired and two blindfolded participants. Although usertests showed promising results, research and usertesting were limited. Future research and usertests with IVIIS are needed to validate if CaseGuide is a desirable solution for IVIIS

Using Games to Practice Screen Reader Gestures

Tese de mestrado, Engenharia Informática (Engenharia de Software) Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2021Nowadays, a smartphone is fundamental for multiple aspects of our lives. These have evolved from a basic tool to communicate to a multi-purpose tool that allows to communicate with colleagues and friends and to get any information or entertainment. Android and iOS, the most popular mobile operating systems, have developed built-in screen readers that make smartphones generally accessible to blind people using gestures and help them use more of their smartphones. However, users experience difficulties due to unfamiliarity with the gestures and due to lack of interaction with their touchscreens. One possible way to improve the accessibility of these technologies could be through games that can teach how to perform a gesture correctly and explain how it can be used, as lately there has been a growing interest on using video games as an innovative educational tool. We developed Games for Gestures, a set of accessible games to discover and learn the gestures Google Talkback offers and our goal is to explore whether it is possible for mobile accessible games to be used as a gesture discovery and practice method. Corda focuses on teaching how to navigate with Explore by Touch. Foguete focuses on directional swipes left and right and on teaching Swipe To Explore. Guarda Redes is focused on the more advanced gestures. To evaluate our games, we performed a study in which participants played our games for a period of 5 days. After that, we conducted audio-recorded remote interviews with questions about the games and their overall perception of gestures. Our results suggest that accessible games could be important in the process of learning gestures, as they offer a playful method of learning, particularly for less experienced users. This, in turn, would increase their autonomy and inclusion, as this process would become easier and more fun for them

Human-powered smartphone assistance for blind people

Mobile devices are fundamental tools for inclusion and independence. Yet, there are still many open research issues in smartphone accessibility for blind people (Grussenmeyer and Folmer 2017). Currently, learning how to use a smartphone is non-trivial, especially when we consider that the need to learn new apps and accommodate to updates never ceases. When first transitioning from a basic feature-phone, people have to adapt to new paradigms of interaction. Where feature phones had a finite set of applications and functions, users can extend the possible functions and uses of a smartphone by installing new 3rd party applications. Moreover, the interconnectivity of these applications means that users can explore a seemingly endless set of workflows across applications. To that end, the fragmented nature of development on these devices results in users needing to create different mental models for each application. These characteristics make smartphone adoption a demanding task, as we found from our eight-week longitudinal study on smartphone adoption by blind people. We conducted multiple studies to characterize the smartphone challenges that blind people face, and found people often require synchronous, co-located assistance from family, peers, friends, and even strangers to overcome the different barriers they face. However, help is not always available, especially when we consider the disparity in each barrier, individual support network and current location. In this dissertation we investigated if and how in-context human-powered solutions can be leveraged to improve current smartphone accessibility and ease of use. Building on a comprehensive knowledge of the smartphone challenges faced and coping mechanisms employed by blind people, we explored how human-powered assistive technologies can facilitate use. The thesis of this dissertation is: Human-powered smartphone assistance by non-experts is effective and impacts perceptions of self-efficacy

Camadas acessíveis: acessibilidade móvel através de uma interface consistente

Tese de mestrado, Engenharia Informática (Sistemas de Informação) Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2017Com a evolução tecnológica, as teclas físicas dos telemóveis foram substituídas por um ecrã maior e sensível ao tato. Esta foi uma mudança que revolucionou a maneira como interagimos com dispositivos móveis, mas que introduziu um problema de acessibilidade para quem não consegue ver o que é apresentado no ecrã. Este problema encontra-se particularmente na localização de elementos e navegação nas aplicações existentes. Atualmente, os sistemas operativos móveis oferecem algumas soluções de acessibilidade aos seus utilizadores tais como leitores de ecrã, fontes maiores ou suporte para teclados externos. Estas soluções são um grande contributo para ajudar estes utilizadores a usar um smartphone, mas não resolvem totalmente o problema apresentado uma vez que o utilizador é sempre obrigado a conhecer previamente a interface ou a explorar todos os seus elementos em busca do elemento que pretende. Neste projeto, apresentamos o Accessible Templates. Uma aplicação que pretende tornar mais fácil o uso de um smartphone através de uma interface acessível e consistente em qualquer janela do sistema. A aplicação oferece dois tipos de navegação através de botões ou através do sistema de gestos direcionais do Talkback. Oferece ainda um sistema de favoritos e de macros para realizar tarefas complexas automaticamente. Foram realizados estudos com utilizadores cegos onde foi possível verificar a aceitação e facilidade de uso da aplicação desenvolvida.With the technological evolution, the physical keys of mobile phones have been replaced by a larger screen, sensitive to touch. This was a change that revolutionized the way we interact with mobile devices, but it has introduced an accessibility problem for those who cannot see what is displayed on the screen. This problem lies particularly in locating elements and navigating in common applications. Currently, mobile operating systems offer some accessibility solutions to their users such as screen readers, larger fonts, or support for external keyboards. These solutions are a great help for these users when using a smartphone, but they do not fully solve the problem presented since the user is always obliged to know the interface beforehand or to explore all its elements in search of the element they want to select. In this project, we present the Accessible Templates, an application that intends to make the use of a smartphone easier through an accessible and consistent interface in any system window. The application offers two types of navigation through buttons or through the directional Talkback gesture system. It also offers a favourites and macros system to perform complex tasks automatically. Studies with blind users were carried out in which it was possible to verify the acceptance and ease of use of the developed application

Quiet Interaction: Designing an Accessible Home Environment for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) Individuals through AR, AI, and IoT Technologies

As technology rapidly evolves, voice-command-based smart assistants are becoming integral to our daily lives. However, this advancement overlooks the needs of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) community, creating a technological gap in current systems. To address this technological oversight, this study develops a Mixed-Reality (MR) application that integrates Augmented Reality (AR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to fill the gaps in safety, communication, and accessibility for DHH individuals at home. By employing the User-Centric design methodology, this study begins with a needs assessment through a literature review and online survey to understand the unique challenges and preferences of the DHH community. The key contribution of this study lies in its innovative integration of technologies within a Mixed-Reality (MR) framework, with the goal of creating a more inclusive and accessible home environment for the DHH community

Designing privacy-preserving personalized public display systems

Public Displays sind heute ein allgegenwärtiges Kommunikationsmedium. Benutzern relevante Inhalte zu präsentieren ist zweifelsohne wichtig. Persönliche Inhalte sind meist relevant, erfordern jedoch besondere Datenschutzmaßnahmen. Diese Arbeit konzentriert sich auf den Entwurf personalisierter Public Displays, die die Privatsphäre schützen. Sie untersucht drei Forschungsfragen: (1) Was sind die größten Gefahren für die Privatsphäre auf Public Displays? (2) Welche Gegenmaßnahmen existieren für diese Gefahren? (3) Wie kann der Entwurf von Public Displays unterstützt werden?Drei konkrete Beiträge widmen sich je einer Forschungsfrage: (1) Ein Gefahren-Modell, (2) eine Liste samt Klassifizierung von Gegenmaßnahmen, und (3) eine neue Methodik für die Entwicklung von Public Displays. Designer und Forscher können diese Ergebnisse nutzen, um Systeme zu erstellen, die die Privatsphäre der Benutzer schützen. Zusammenfassend kann diese Arbeit dazu beitragen, die Entwicklung solcher personalisierter Public Displays zu vereinfachen und zu beschleunigen.Digital public displays are a popular means of communication nowadays. Showing users content that is relevant to them is an important issue. Personal content is often regarded as relevant, but that calls for certain means of privacy in turn. This thesis focuses on designing privacy-preserving personalized public display systems. It addresses three research questions: (1) What are main privacy threats on public displays? (2) What are countermeasures to those privacy threats? (3) How to support the design process of public displays?Three tangible contributions address each research question: (1) a privacy threat model for public displays, (2) a list and classification of countermeasures, and (3) a novel methodology to design, prototype, and evaluate public display systems. Designers and researchers can use these contributions to create public displays, that do not pose a threat to the user's privacy. In conclusion, this thesis can thus contribute towards simplifying and accelerating the development of privacy-preserving personalized public display systems

Individualized Models of Colour Differentiation through Situation-Specific Modelling

In digital environments, colour is used for many purposes: for example, to encode information in charts, signify missing field information on websites, and identify active windows and menus. However, many people have inherited, acquired, or situationally-induced Colour Vision Deficiency (CVD), and therefore have difficulties differentiating many colours. Recolouring tools have been developed that modify interface colours to make them more differentiable for people with CVD, but these tools rely on models of colour differentiation that do not represent the majority of people with CVD. As a result, existing recolouring tools do not help most people with CVD. To solve this problem, I developed Situation-Specific Modelling (SSM), and applied it to colour differentiation to develop the Individualized model of Colour Differentiation (ICD). SSM utilizes an in-situ calibration procedure to measure a particular user’s abilities within a particular situation, and a modelling component to extend the calibration measurements into a full representation of the user’s abilities. ICD applies in-situ calibration to measuring a user’s unique colour differentiation abilities, and contains a modelling component that is capable of representing the colour differentiation abilities of almost any individual with CVD. This dissertation presents four versions of the ICD and one application of the ICD to recolouring. First, I describe the development and evaluation of a feasibility implementation of the ICD that tests the viability of the SSM approach. Second, I present revised calibration and modelling components of the ICD that reduce the calibration time from 32 minutes to two minutes. Next, I describe the third and fourth ICD versions that improve the applicability of the ICD to recolouring tools by reducing the colour differentiation prediction time and increasing the power of each prediction. Finally, I present a new recolouring tool (ICDRecolour) that uses the ICD model to steer the recolouring process. In a comparative evaluation, ICDRecolour achieved 90% colour matching accuracy for participants – 20% better than existing recolouring tools – for a wide range of CVDs. By modelling the colour differentiation abilities of a particular user in a particular environment, the ICD enables the extension of recolouring tools to helping most people with CVD, thereby reducing the difficulties that people with CVD experience when using colour in digital environments