3,086 research outputs found
Synchronizing Audio and Haptic to Read Webpage
Constantly emerging technologies present new interactive ways to convey
information on the Web. The new and enhanced website design has gradually
improved sighted usersâ understanding on the Web content but on the other hand,
it creates more obstacles to the visually impaired. The significant technological
gap in assistive technology and the Web presents on-going challenges to
maintain web accessibility, especially for disabled users. The limitations of
current assistive technology to convey non-textual information including text
attributes such as bold, underline, and italic from the Web further restrict the
visually impaired from acquiring comprehensive understanding of the Web
content. This project addresses this issues by investigating the problems faced by
the visually impaired when using the current assistive technology. The
significance of text attributes to support accessibility and improve understanding
of the Web content is also being studied. For this purpose several qualitative and
quantitative data collection methods are adopted to test the hypotheses. The
project also examines the relationship between multimodal technology using
audio and haptic modalities and the mental model generated by the visually
impaired while accessing webpage. The findings are then used as a framework
to develop a system that synchronizes audio and haptic to read webpages and
represents text attributes to visually impaired users is to be develop. From the
prototype built, pilot testing and user testing are conducted to evaluate the
system. The result and recommendations are shared at the end of project for
future enhancement
PARLOMA â A Novel Human-Robot Interaction System for Deaf-blind Remote Communication
Deaf-blindness forces people to live in isolation. Up to now there is no existing technological solution enabling two (or many) Deaf-blind persons to communicate remotely among them in tactile Sign Language (t-SL). When resorting to t-SL, Deaf-blind persons can communicate only with persons physically present in the same place, because they are required to reciprocally explore their hands to exchange messages. We present a preliminary version of PARLOMA, a novel system to enable remote communication between Deaf-blind persons. It is composed of a low-cost depth sensor as the only input device, paired with a robotic hand as output device. Essentially, any user can perform handshapes in front of the depth sensor. The system is able to recognize a set of handshapes that are sent over the web and reproduced by an anthropomorphic robotic hand. PARLOMA can work as a âtelephoneâ for Deaf-blind people. Hence, it will dramatically improve life quality of Deaf-blind persons. PARLOMA has been designed in strict collaboration with the main Italian Deaf-blind associations, in order to include end-users in the design phase
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-makersâ 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 designersâ capabilities
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