How the visually impaired use computers

Contents• Visual impairment (cliff notes) • How VI users interaction with computers

– Current problems & solutions– Alternative solutions

Visual Impairment

Definition

A severe reduction in vision that cannot be corrected with standard glasses, contact lenses or surgery and reduces a person's ability to function at certain or all tasks.

World Health Organization working definition [1]

• Categories– Low vision– Legally blind– Totally blind

Cataract (47.9%) Glaucoma (12.3%) Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) (8.7%)

Normal

Severe

Prevalence

• 285 million visually impaired worldwide– 246 million: low vision (63% over 50 years )– 39 million: blind (82% over 50 years)

• Elderly are the most affected– females are more at risk

• 87% live in developing countries• 85% of visual impairment is avoidable

– Including cataract and Glaucoma

How the vision impaired use computers

literature review

Visual Impairment & HCI

• Aim– What is the current state-of-art of research

in low-vision computer users and their interaction with computers

– What interactive interventions and technologies have been investigated in this domain in terms of design and evaluation

– Based on the findings, what are the promising directions in this research area

Visual Impairment & HCI• Paper inclusion criteria:

1. Papers that deal with the nature of the diseases

2. Papers that deal with design and use (usability) of computerized technologies and accessibility software that low vision users use to improve their quality of life.

3. Empirical studies of low vision computerized technologies in the domain of HCI

4. Papers published between 1990 - 2010

Visual Impairment & HCI5. Keywords in tile or abstract

• Age related macular degeneration / macular degeneration / AMD / AMRD• Blind• Cataracts• Central scotoma / Scotoma• Corneal Opacity• Diabetic retinopathy• Glaucoma• Legal blindness / Legally blind • Low vision• Partial vision / Partial sight / Partially sighted• Reduced vision• Vision deficiency / Vision impairment / Vision loss• Visually disabled / Visual disabilities / Visual impairment / visually

impaired

Visual Impairment & HCI• 10 HCI Journals

– Human Computer Interaction (6.190)– IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics: B (3.007)– International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (2.380)– User Modeling and User Adapted Interaction (2.345)– IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics: A (2.033)– IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics: C (2.016)– Interacting with Computers (1.698)– ACM Transactions on Computer Human Interaction (1.194)– Behavior & Information Technology (0.767)– International Journal of Human Computer Interaction (0.587)

Visual Impairment & HCI

• Total results: 504– 51 papers matched criteria (10.1% of results)

• blind: 51%• cataract: 2% • glaucoma: 0%• macular degeneration: 6%• general: 41%

Problems

• GUI and Direct manipulation• Web

– Accessibility and usability• Confustion page layout• Inaccessible images• Conflicts between accessibility applications and

software programs• Misleading info

Command Line Interfaces

• Text only interface that allows a user to interact with an OS or software by typing commands to perform specific tasks.  

• Cursor postion and display characters were mapped to a screen buffer in memory

IBM-DOS

Hardware solutions

• Hardware– Alternative keyboards– CCTVs– Brail displays– Tactile displays– Audio tapes

Refreshable brail display

Reading from CCTV

• SoftwareScreen Reader

• Most popular because Brail literacty is low– Screen Magnifier– Self voicing applications

Software solutions

Windows start menu viewed with screen magnification

Alternative solutions

• Gaze contingent interfaces• Crowd sourcing

– Follow the path– Wizard of OZ– Shared display

Thank You

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