Understanding Experiences of Blind Individuals in Outdoor Nature

Research shows that exposure to nature has benefits for people's mental and physical health and that ubiquitous and mobile technologies encourage engagement with nature. However, existing research in this area is primarily focused on people without visual impairments and is not inclusive of blind and partially sighted individuals. To address this gap in research, we interviewed seven blind people (without remaining vision) about their experiences when exploring and experiencing the outdoor natural environment to gain an understanding of their needs and barriers and how these needs can be addressed by technology. In this paper, we present the three themes identified from the interview data; independence, knowledge of the environment, and sensory experiences

Opportunities for Supporting Self-efficacy through Orientation & Mobility Training Technologies for Blind and Partially Sighted People

Orientation and mobility (O&M) training provides essential skills and techniques for safe and independent mobility for blind and partially sighted (BPS) people. The demand for O&M training is increasing as the number of people living with vision impairment increases. Despite the growing portfolio of HCI research on assistive technologies (AT), few studies have examined the experiences of BPS people during O&M training, including the use of technology to aid O&M training. To address this gap, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 BPS people and 8 Mobility and Orientation Trainers (MOT). The interviews were thematically analysed and organised into four overarching themes discussing factors influencing the self-efficacy belief of BPS people: Tools and Strategies for O&M training, Technology Use in O&M Training, Changing Personal and Social Circumstances, and Social Influences. We further highlight opportunities for combinations of multimodal technologies to increase access to and effectiveness of O&M training

A Workshop on Disability Inclusive Remote Co-Design

The COVID-19 pandemic forced researchers to find new ways to continue research, as universities and laboratories experienced closure due to nationwide lockdowns in many countries worldwide, including conducting experiments, workshops, and ethnographic work online. While this had a significant impact on the majority of research work across SIGCHI, research relating to disability and ageing was most impacted due to the additional challenges of recruiting participants, finding accessible online platforms, and ensuring seamless participation while juggling platform accessibility issues, facilitation, and supporting participants' needs. These challenges were more extreme for disabled researchers. In this workshop, we aim to bring together researchers, designers, and practitioners to explore effective strategies and brainstorm actionable guidelines for supporting disability inclusive online research methods and platforms

Audio AR to support nature connectedness in people with visual disabilities

Nature and outdoor open spaces are good for our mental and physical health; providing space for exercise, relaxation, socializing and exploring nature. Technology plays an important role in how people explore the outdoors, however, despite the prevalence of mobile technologies that promote outdoor mobility, they are often not accessible to people with disabilities. This PhD project explores technologies to promote nature connectedness in blind and partially sighted people. We have conducted formative studies exploring the needs of blind and partially sighted people and barriers that limit their experiences. The next phase of my research will focus on designing auditory augmented reality systems to augment the natural elements in open spaces which are presented to the user in real-time as they navigate the space. We aim to design, implement, and evaluate pervasive auditory augmented reality systems that enhance people's immersive experience and engagement with nature

PLACES: A Framework for Supporting Blind and Partially Sighted People in Outdoor Leisure Activities

Interacting with natural environments such as parks and the countryside improves health and wellbeing. These spaces allow for exercise, relaxation, socialising and exploring nature, however, they are often not used by blind and partially sighted people (BPSP). To better understand the needs of BPSP for outdoor leisure experience and barriers encountered in planning, accessing and engaging with natural environments, we conducted an exploratory qualitative online survey (22 BPSP), semi-structured interviews (20 BPSP) and a focus group (9 BPSP; 1 support worker). We also explored how current technologies support park experiences for BPSP. Our findings identify common barriers across the stages of planning (e.g. limited accessible information about parks), accessing (e.g. poor wayfinding systems), engaging with and sharing leisure experiences. Across all stages (PLan, Access, Engage, Share) we found a common theme of Contribute. BPSP wished to co-plan their trip, contribute to ways of helping others access a place, develop multisensory approaches to engaging in their surroundings and share their experiences to help others. In this paper, we present the initial work supporting the development of a framework for understanding the leisure experiences of BPSP. We explore this theme of contribution and propose a framework where this feeds into each of the stages of leisure experience, resulting in the proposed, PLACES framework (PLan, Access, Contribute, Engage, Share), which aims to provide a foundation for future research on accessibility and outdoor leisure experiences for BPSP and people with disabilities

Rethinking the Senses: A Workshop on Multisensory Embodied Experiences and Disability Interactions

The emerging possibilities of multisensory interactions provide an exciting space for disability and open up opportunities to explore new experiences for perceiving one's own body, it's interactions with the environment and also to explore the environment itself. In addition, dynamic aspects of living with disability, life transitions, including ageing, psychological distress, long-term conditions such as chronic pain and new conditions such as long-COVID further affect people's abilities. Interactions with this diversity of embodiments can be enriched, empowered and augmented through using multisensory and cross-sensory modalities to create more inclusive technologies and experiences. To explore this, in this workshop we will explore three related sub-domains: immersive multi-sensory experiences, embodied experiences, and disability interactions and design. The aim is to better understand how we can re-think the senses in technology design for disability interactions and the dynamic self, constructed through continuously changing sensing capabilities either because of changing ability or because of the empowering technology. This workshop will: (i) bring together HCI researchers from different areas, (ii) discuss tools, frameworks and methods, and (iii) form a multidisciplinary community to build synergies for further collaboration

Increasing ciprofloxacin resistance of isolates from infected urines of a cross-section of patients in Karachi

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The objective of the research was to evaluate the current effectiveness of Ciprofloxacin on the uropathogens prevalent in infected urines of a cross-section of patients in Karachi, Pakistan.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>An observational study conducted in a private diagnostic laboratory and its branches in key areas of Karachi City from February 2010 to July 2011. A total of 2963 consecutive urine samples were cultured on chocolate agar, CLED medium and selective EMB agar. Growth of possible uropathogens was noted, and compared retrospectively with earlier lab data of suggestive urine cultures (<it>n</it> = 1997) recorded during January 2009 and December 2009. The isolates were identified using routine procedures and the API 20 system and evaluated for their sensitivity to ciprofloxacin by Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method. Data was subjected to statistical analysis on SPSS version 16. Out of the present-day culture-positive urines, 2409 (80.4%) yielded gram-negative rods, and 554 (18.5%) gram-positive cocci. <it>E.coli</it> (43.1%) was most frequent, followed by <it>Klebsiella pneumoniae</it> (22.4%) and <it>Staphylococcus aureus</it> (15.5%). 57.2% of the Gram-negative bacteria and 48.7% of the Gram-positive isolates were resistant to ciprofloxacin. In the earlier (2009) screening, 39% of Gram-negative rods and 48% of Gram-positive cocci were indifferent to the drug.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A decrease in bacterial susceptibility of uropathogens to ciprofloxacin, a commonly prescribed drug in our population, is underlined, occurring possibly due to overuse pressure. Empirical initial treatment with ciprofloxacin would be inadequate in more than half of UTI cases, thereby counseling increased C/S testing of urines to provide existing sensitivity data for apt drug prescription.</p