'Did you see that!?' Enhancing the experience of sports media broadcast for blind people

Accessibility in sports media broadcast (SMB) remains a problem for blind spectators who wish to socialize and watch sports with friends and family. Although popular, radio's reliance on low bandwidth speech results in an overwhelming experience for blind spectators. In this paper we focused on two core issues: (i) how SMB can be augmented to convey diegetic information more effectively, and (ii) the social context in which SMB are consumed. We chose tennis broadcasts for our investigations. Addressing issue (i), we developed a system design and prototype to enhance the experience of watching tennis matches, focusing on blind spectators using audio descriptions and 3D audio, and evaluated our system with (n=12) in a controlled user evaluation. Our results indicate how audio descriptions gave clear information for the tennis ball placements, 3D audio provided subtle cues for the ball direction, and radio provided desired human commentary. For issue (ii), we conducted an online questionnaire (n=15) investigating the social context in which blind spectators consume SMB. Participant feedback indicated there is a demand for more accessible SMB content such that people can consume SMB by themselves and with their friends. Participants were enthusiastic for a revised system design mixing elements from 3D audio and audio description. We discuss our results in the context of social SMB spectatorship, concluding with insights into accessible SMB technologies

Steroide, biochemische Knochenmarker, Knochendichte und Histomorphometrie bei männlichen Osteoporosepatienten

Die Absicht der vorliegenden Studie war die Untersuchung der prognostischen Vorhersagbarkeit von Sexualsteroiden, insbesondere von Östrogen und Testosteron in Bezug auf den Schweregrad der Osteoporose des Mannes. In der Studie wurden Patienten mit sekundärer Osteoporose eingeschlossen. Besonders häufige Risikofaktoren waren Alkoholkonsum, Nikotinabusus, Steroid-medikation und die Behandlung mit Antikonvulsiva. 100 männliche Patienten der Medizinischen Poliklinik der Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen im Alter von 30 bis 78 Jahren wurden klinisch untersucht und biochemisch auf bestimmte Knochen-umsatzparameter aus dem venösen Blut und dem 24 Stunden-Urin hin kontrolliert. Außerdem wurde die Knochendichte gemessen. In 40 Fällen fand eine Knochen-marksbiopsie zur histomorphometrischen Untersuchung statt. Labor-chemisch bestimmten wir Kalzium, Phosphat, Parathormon, Osteokalzin, Prokollagen Typ I Propeptid, Alkalische Phosphatase, knochenspezifische Alkalische Phosphatase, 25 OH-Vitamin D3, Testosteron, Östradiol, Gonadotropine, T3 und TSH aus dem Serum und Desoxypyridinolin und Hydroxyprolin aus dem 24 Stunden-Urin. Die Ergebnisse der deskriptiven Statistik zeigen im Vergleich zum entsprechenden Normalkollektiv bei 26.4% der gemessenen Patienten einen Hypogonadismus, einen Mangel an 25 OH-Vitamin D3 bei 26.2% und erhöhte Serumestradiolwerte bei 59.1%. Bei 8.5% des Kollektivs fanden sich erhöhte PTH-Serumwerte. Bei der multiplen Kovarianzanalyse konnten weder signifikante Korrelationen zwischen der Knochendichte und der semiquantitativen Histomorphometrie, noch positive Korrelationen zwischen Testosteron bzw. Estradiol und der Knochendichte gemessen werden. Signifikante Korrelationen fanden sich zwischen Testosteron und Estradiol (r=0.398, p=0.008) und zwischen der knochenspezifischen Alkalischen Phosphatase und der Knochendichte am Ward\u27schen Dreieck (p=0.001). In der mit Steroiden behandelten Patientengruppe (n=12) fanden sich bei PTH (p<0.01), bei 25 OH-Vitamin D (p<0.05) und bei dem im Urin gemessenen Desoxypyridinolin (p<0.05) signifikante Unterschiede im Vergleich zur anderen Patientengruppe (n=88). Zusammenfassend können wir sagen, dass wir zwischen der Knochendichte und der semiquantitativen Histomorphometrie keine Korrelation feststellen konnten. Die untersuchten biochemischen Knochenumsatzparameter zeigten ebenfalls keine Korrelation zu den Sexualsteroiden Estradiol und Testosteron. Im Gegensatz zu anderen Veröffentlichungen, die im Zusammenhang mit der männlichen Osteoporose auf ein Östrogendefizit hinweisen, fanden wir bei unserer Patientengruppe überwiegend erhöhte Werte vor. Ausblickend ist festzustellen, dass das Östrogen, wie bei der postmenopausalen Osteoporose, auch bei der Pathogenese der männlichen Osteoporose eine zentrale Rolle spielt, während das Testosteron in diesem Zusammenhang an Bedeutung zu verlieren scheint. Dies läßt sich ebenso durch unsere Studie bestätigen

"Hey Model!" -- Natural User Interactions and Agency in Accessible Interactive 3D Models

While developments in 3D printing have opened up opportunities for improved access to graphical information for people who are blind or have low vision (BLV), they can provide only limited detailed and contextual information. Interactive 3D printed models (I3Ms) that provide audio labels and/or a conversational agent interface potentially overcome this limitation. We conducted a Wizard-of-Oz exploratory study to uncover the multi-modal interaction techniques that BLV people would like to use when exploring I3Ms, and investigated their attitudes towards different levels of model agency. These findings informed the creation of an I3M prototype of the solar system. A second user study with this model revealed a hierarchy of interaction, with BLV users preferring tactile exploration, followed by touch gestures to trigger audio labels, and then natural language to fill in knowledge gaps and confirm understanding.Comment: Paper presented at ACM CHI 2020: Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, New York, April 2020; Replacement: typos correcte

GraVVITAS: accessible graphics for visually impaired people

Graphics, whether they are visually appealing elements or simply scribbles on a sheet of paper, are important tools used by people to convey information. They are widely used in educational and daily life materials such as newspapers, text books, web pages, electronic books, metro maps, instruction manuals etc. When appropriate they provide many cognitive benefits over text. Graphics are also becoming more sophisticated with recent advances in information visualisation applications, and now often include dynamic content such as animations and elements that can interact with the users. Unfortunately, graphics are not easily accessed by visually impaired people, in partic- ular by blind people. There have been many different approaches to solve this problem by using tactile, tactile-audio, haptic and speech/non-speech audio techniques, however, these approaches have limitations such as use of expensive tactile graphics or expensive peripheral devices, and they may not provide similar cognitive benefits to visual graphics. The main contribution of this thesis is GraVVITAS (Graphics Viewer using Vibra- tion, Interactive Touch, Audio and Speech) which addresses these limitations and presents graphics to blind people in a way which: (i) can be used effectively to read accessible versions of a wide range of graphics while preserving the cognitive benefits of visual graphics, (ii) is practical in terms of cost and portability, and (iii) provides an interactive display which allows dynamic exploration of graphics. A user- centered and participatory design methodology is used to develop GraVVITAS. A usability evaluation is then performed to investigate the interaction model of the final system. In addition to GraVVITAS the thesis has the following contributions: (i) an evaluation of assistive technologies used for presenting graphics to blind people by using theoretical analyses which assess the usability of these technologies, and to what extent they provide the cognitive benefits of graphics, (ii) a formal usability study which examines tactile and tactile-audio bar chart layouts for improving their effectiveness and readability, (iii) authoring tools developed to create accessible graphics

GraVVITAS: accessible graphics for visually impaired people

Graphics, whether they are visually appealing elements or simply scribbles on a sheet of paper, are important tools used by people to convey information. They are widely used in educational and daily life materials such as newspapers, text books, web pages, electronic books, metro maps, instruction manuals etc. When appropriate they provide many cognitive benefits over text. Graphics are also becoming more sophisticated with recent advances in information visualisation applications, and now often include dynamic content such as animations and elements that can interact with the users. Unfortunately, graphics are not easily accessed by visually impaired people, in partic- ular by blind people. There have been many different approaches to solve this problem by using tactile, tactile-audio, haptic and speech/non-speech audio techniques, however, these approaches have limitations such as use of expensive tactile graphics or expensive peripheral devices, and they may not provide similar cognitive benefits to visual graphics. The main contribution of this thesis is GraVVITAS (Graphics Viewer using Vibra- tion, Interactive Touch, Audio and Speech) which addresses these limitations and presents graphics to blind people in a way which: (i) can be used effectively to read accessible versions of a wide range of graphics while preserving the cognitive benefits of visual graphics, (ii) is practical in terms of cost and portability, and (iii) provides an interactive display which allows dynamic exploration of graphics. A user- centered and participatory design methodology is used to develop GraVVITAS. A usability evaluation is then performed to investigate the interaction model of the final system. In addition to GraVVITAS the thesis has the following contributions: (i) an evaluation of assistive technologies used for presenting graphics to blind people by using theoretical analyses which assess the usability of these technologies, and to what extent they provide the cognitive benefits of graphics, (ii) a formal usability study which examines tactile and tactile-audio bar chart layouts for improving their effectiveness and readability, (iii) authoring tools developed to create accessible graphics

GraVVITAS: Generic Multi-touch Presentation of Accessible Graphics

Part 2: Long and Short PapersInternational audienceAccess to graphics and other two dimensional information is still severely limited for people who are blind. We present a new multimodal computer tool, GraVVITAS, for presenting accessible graphics. It uses a multi-touch display for tracking the position of the user’s fingers augmented with haptic feedback for the fingers provided by small vibrating motors, and audio feedback for navigation and to provide non-geometric information about graphic elements. We believe GraVVITAS is the first practical, generic, low cost approach to providing refreshable accessible graphics. We have used a participatory design process with blind participants and a final evaluation of the tool shows that they can use it to understand a variety of graphics - tables, line graphs, and floorplans

Tactile diagrams: worth ten thousand words?

The properties that make diagrams more effective than text in certain circumstances have been investigated by researchers for over 20 years. However, this research has focused on visual diagrams. To the best of our knowledge, no research has yet investigated whether the same benefits and properties hold for tactile diagrams, which are blind people's primary means of access to diagrams. We present a consideration of similarities and differences in the properties and potential benefits of visual and tactile diagrams; and suggest where experimental investigation would be useful