Everyday visual demands of people with low vision:A mixed methods real-life recording study

Research has demonstrated that low vison aids (LVAs) can have a positive impact on the functional sight of those living with sight loss. Step changes in technology are now enabling new wearable LVAs with greater potential than those available previously. For these novel devices to receive increased acceptance and therefore adoption by those with sight loss, visual task demands have to be understood more clearly in order to enable better alignment between device design and user requirements. The aim of this study was to quantify these requirements. Thirty-two participants aged 18 to 87 wore a spectacle-mounted video camera to capture and narrate all everyday situations in which they would use a "perfect" sight aid during 1 week. Captured scenes were analyzed through categorization and computational image analysis. Results showed large variation in activities and lifestyles. Participants reported no available sight aid or coping strategy for 57% of the recorded activities. Reading made up 49% of all recorded tasks, the other half comprising non-textual information. Overall, 75% of captured activities were performed ad hoc (duration of 0-5 minutes), 78% occurred indoors, 58% occurred at home, 48% were lit by natural light, 68% included the object of interest within reach, and 69% required a single focus plane only. Around half of captured objects of interest had a size of 2 degrees visual angle (2.08 logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution [logMAR]) or smaller. This study highlights the need for a sight aid that can make both textual and non-textual scenes accessible while offering flexibility to accommodate individual lifestyles

Everyday visual demands of people with low vision: A mixed methods real-life recording study

Research has demonstrated that low vison aids (LVAs) can have a positive impact on the functional sight of those living with sight loss. Step changes in technology are now enabling new wearable LVAs with greater potential than those available previously. For these novel devices to receive increased acceptance and therefore adoption by those with sight loss, visual task demands have to be understood more clearly in order to enable better alignment between device design and user requirements. The aim of this study was to quantify these requirements. Thirty-two participants aged 18 to 87 wore a spectacle-mounted video camera to capture and narrate all everyday situations in which they would use a “perfect” sight aid during 1 week. Captured scenes were analyzed through categorization and computational image analysis. Results showed large variation in activities and lifestyles. Participants reported no available sight aid or coping strategy for 57% of the recorded activities. Reading made up 49% of all recorded tasks, the other half comprising non-textual information. Overall, 75% of captured activities were performed ad hoc (duration of 0–5 minutes), 78% occurred indoors, 58% occurred at home, 48% were lit by natural light, 68% included the object of interest within reach, and 69% required a single focus plane only. Around half of captured objects of interest had a size of 2 degrees visual angle (2.08 logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution [logMAR]) or smaller. This study highlights the need for a sight aid that can make both textual and non-textual scenes accessible while offering flexibility to accommodate individual lifestyles

The challenge of obtaining ground truth for GPS processing

The increasing use of GPS as a substitute or complement to conventional travel surveys has brought with it an increasing need for a reliable source of ground truth, i.e., information on the actual travel in which each respondent engaged, including the mode and purpose of such travel. Over the past decade or so, the main source that has been used for providing ground truth is the prompted recall survey. As the survey task has become less of a challenge, it has become evident that the prompted recall survey is subject to many of the same shortcomings as most selfadministered surveys, with reporting error, misunderstanding of what constitutes a trip, etc. In this paper, we review some of the common problems encountered in prompted recall surveys, especially those undertaken at some period of time after the GPS survey was undertaken, and using self-report methods. Following this, the paper describes a recent experiment in using life-logging cameras to record a person’s travel, together with GPS, thereby providing a new source of ground truth data that is not subject to processing issues of the GPS data, nor to self-report or other issues with prompted recall data

Impact of video summary viewing on episodic memory recall:design guidelines for video summarizations

Reviewing lifelogging data has been proposed as a useful tool to support human memory. However, the sheer volume of data (particularly images) that can be captured by modern lifelogging systems makes the selection and presentation of material for review a challenging task. We present the results of a five-week user study involving 16 participants and over 69,000 images that explores both individual requirements for video summaries and the differences in cognitive load, user experience, memory experience, and recall experience between review using video summarisations and non-summary review techniques. Our results can be used to inform the design of future lifelogging data summarisation systems for memory augmentation

Using technology in the development of a collaborative approach to feedback and more active reflection: an exploration of trainee teachers’ views

This study is driven by two separate but interrelated issues. First, it is driven by the desire to explore the effectiveness of technology devices in the structure of professional development of trainee teachers. Second, it seeks to explore the extent to which such technologies, as reflected in the use of digital recordings in the process of self-reflection by trainee teachers, can contribute to a shift to more collaborative feedback and active reflection. The anchor for this exploration is the desire to move away from the teacher (educator)–centred role (Copland 2010) that is prevalent in the use of feedback in contemporary teacher training programmes. The study surveyed the views of trainee teachers in two colleges through the use of a questionnaire and through a focus group discussion in consonance with the integrative approach to action research which acknowledges the importance of the voice of the third person (Coghlan and Brannick, 2010). The findings were subjected to both qualitative and quantitative analysis, the former through the use of the SPSS statistical analysis tool and the latter through an ethno-linguistic approach (Copland 2010). The study found that in the views of trainee teachers (third person), the use of technology devices can significantly facilitate the promotion of more collaborative approaches to giving and using feedback in their professional development if certain conditions were met. The study concluded that while these approaches are highly desired by trainee teachers who see them as more helpful than the prevalent teacher-centred approach, there is the need to develop a conceptual framework for its implementation

Co-Reflective System: Supporting Collaborative Critical Thinking and Knowledge Building

Service-learning pedagogy provides practical learning experience for students by integrating community service with academic learning. However, experience is not enough, reflection on that experience is essential to produce new understanding. The concept of collaborative reflection has been recognized recently however, there is lack of research on how to structure guided collaborative reflection to view the process of knowledge building and how technologies can support it. To shed light on this issue, this study proposed a computational workflow of structured collaborative reflection which is adopted from integrated collaborative reflection model and implement a prototype (i.e. named as ‘Co-Reflective’) to proof the concept how Computer Supported Collaborative Reflection System (CSCRS) is supporting collaborative critical thinking and knowledge building. For this purpose, design science research methodology was employed in this study. The evaluation of Co-Reflective is provided where we asked our participants to evaluate their experience and give feedback about system. Based on the positive feedback of participants we conclude that Co-Reflective can effectively support for guided collaborative reflection activities to promote collaborative critical thinking and knowledge building. Implementation of Co-Reflective not only addresses the limitations of current technologies but also contribute in the body of knowledge by presenting the concept of integrated collaborative reflection model that promotes collaborative critical thinking and knowledge building. Keywords—collaborative knowledge building, collaborative reflection, Computer Supported Collaborative Reflection System (CSCRS), service learning

Life-swap:how discussions around personal data can motivate desire for change

Personal informatics technologies support the collection of and reflection on personal data, but enabling people to learn from and act on this data is still an on-going challenge. Sharing and discussing data is one way people can learn from it, but as yet, little research explores how peer discourses around data can shape understandings and promote action. We ran 3 workshops with 5-week follow-ups, giving 18 people the opportunity to swap their data and discuss it with another person. We found that these workshops helped them to recontextualise and to better understand their data, identify new strategies for changing their behaviour and motivated people to commit to changes in the future. These findings have implications for how personal informatics tools could help people identify opportunities for change and feel motivated to try out new strategies

Designing for Reflection, Sustainability and Simplicity

There are a number of ways in which technology is, and could be used to promote reflective thought. These techniques may well be applicable for designers hoping to promote sustainable living. This paper briefly outlines a landscape for supporting reflection with technology, relates it to sustainable HCI research then raises issues to do with reflection and simplicity for discussion

The researcher as experimental subject: using self-experimentation to access experiences, understand social phenomena, and stimulate reflexivity

The current article argues that researcher-as-subject self-experimentation can provide valuable insight and systematic knowledge to social psychologists. This approach, the modus operandi of experimental psychology when the field was in its infancy, has been largely eclipsed by an almost exclusive focus on participant-as-subject other-experimentation. Drawing from the non-experimental first-person traditions of autoethnography, participant observation, and phenomenology, we argue that participating as both observer and subject within one’s own social psychological experiment affords researchers at least three potential benefits: (1) access to “social qualia,” that is, the subjective experience of social phenomena; (2) improved mental models of social phenomena, potentially stimulating new research questions; and (3) an enhanced ability to be reflexive about the given experiment. To support our position, we provide first-person self-reflections from researchers who have self-experimented with transformed social interactions involving Milgram’s cyranoid method. We close by offering guidelines on how one might approach self-experimentation, and discuss a variety of first-person perspective ethnographic technologies that can be incorporated into the practice