The vital role played by pictures and diagrams in modern communication is stated with the need for adequate substitutes so that visually impaired people can take full advantage of educational and career opportunities. The multiplicity of purposes to which pictures and diagrams can be put and the diversity of styles which result are discussed. Available methods for producing tactile versions of these (some devised and improved by the author) are described and provisionally evaluated.

The ultimate aim of this empirical study has been to investigate the obstacles visually impaired women in Tanzania face in their struggle for accessing and gaining education. It explores issues of culture, gender, disability, education and development, and examines the ways these interact with one another in shaping the lives of the women under discussion. These issues are conceptualised to establish the theoretical framework of the study. The epistemological and ontological position of the social model of disability has guided the conceptualisation and analysis of the problem under review. Using this model, this study critiques the way in which society perceives disabled people in general, and disabled women in particular. The social model approach emphasises a need to move society's perception of disability away from the medical model approach, which individualises disability. There are two main reasons for my choice of topic for this investigation. Firstly, the research is as much about my own experiences as it is about other visually impaired women. It is argued that the way the identity of visually impaired women is socially constructed, drawing on cultural understandings, social/economic and political barriers and society's negative attitudes towards sex and impairment, has served to inhibit their access to education. Secondly, I decided to research gender disparities in the provision of education for visually impaired persons because it has never previously (to my knowledge) been on research agendas of academics or disability activists in Tanzania. In setting the scene, the thesis starts by justifying the need for researching the problem of inaccessibility of visually impaired women to education in Tanzania. Semi structured interviews were used to generate the primary data for the study. 58 visually impaired women and 26 parents/guardians participated in the research, as well as other 36 key informants. Research findings reveal various obstacles visually impaired women in Tanzania encounter in their struggle for accessing and gaining education. These include cultural, social, economic, political and physicaldifficulties. The findings further highlight outcomes of the educational obstacles on the lives of visually impaired women; reviewing the coping strategies they use in their struggle for survival, and record their views about the ways their education could be improved. The study concludes by suggesting key issues for the way forward. Recommendations directed to all involved in the provision of education for visually impaired women are oriented toward changing attitudes and ensuring that education is their human right and not a matter of charity.

It is possible for Visually Impaired people to do most jobs if they have the right training, technological assistance and emotional support. Yet it is difficult for Visually Impaired people to get employment, and also difficult to adapt to the workplace when a person becomes Visually Impaired. The purpose of the study is to explore how those who become Visually Impaired adapt to their work environment. In exploring these adaptations, the research aims to discover, firstly, if the Visually Impaired are doing the jobs they want to and how they go about doing so. Secondly, to discover which technology, equipment, support and training is helpful in aiding the VI in the workplace. Thirdly, to discover if the Visually Impaired person feels normal if physical and social barriers in the workplace are removed. And lastly, if the Visually Impaired do adapt to the workplace after they become Visually Impaired. The physical and social barriers a Visually Impaired person faces at work, the emotional adaptation that needs to be made when Visual Impairment sets in, the adaptive technology and equipment that assist the Visually Impaired at work, as well as the legislation relevant to the Visually Impaired worker are discussed. The qualitative approach is used as the method of research as the objective of the study is to understand the experience of those becoming Visually Impaired and adapting to their workplaces from within their own environments. Data was collected by means of interviews from five participants, and case studies written to describe their experiences. Comparisons were drawn to assist in analyzing the participants’ experiences. A number of assumptions were then made about Visually Impaired people, as a number of possible issues came to light that the majority of Visually Impaired people might experience in some way or other, as a result of the similarities in the experiences of the Visually Impaired participants. The following assumptions were made: The Visually Impaired do adapt to the work environment. The Visually Impaired must make certain adaptations to cope at work under their new circumstances. Adaptive technology and equipment, training and support are necessary and helpful to the Visually Impaired in the workplace. Some of the Visually Impaired participants are doing jobs they want to do, and others are not. Some Visually Impaired people feel normal and have always feel normal; others need physical and social barriers removed, to feel normal; and yet others would feel normal if they could have those things they took for granted before, back. The positive reaction of colleagues, clients and managers depends on two things: their knowledge of the Visually Impaired and the Visually Impaired person’s attitude to life and his/her impairment. Most Visually Impaired people need and can find some form of meaningful activity in their lives. Copyright 2002, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: De Kock, HC 2002, Adapting to the work environment by the recently visually impaired, MCom dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-02152012-120931 / > C12/4/125/gm / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Human Resource Management / unrestricted

The Help America Vote Act, passed into law in 2002, mandated that all polling places provide privacy and independence to all voters. Given this, many jurisdictions have been forced into making a choice between providing traditional voting methods (such as paper ballots) and offering newer electronic voting systems. Electronic voting machines have been seen as the solution to many usability and accessibility problems, but very little literature exists to indicate whether this is the case among specific populations such as disabled, elderly, and non-English speaking voters. An audio accessible voting interface for visually disabled voters (CHILVote) was designed using specifications from both the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines and a largescale survey of blind individuals conducted by Piner and Byrne [in proceedings of The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 55th Annual Meeting, pp. 1686-1690 (2011)]. CHILVote’s interface utilizes the given design guidelines and includes use of a male text-to-speech voice, a flexible navigation structure, adjustable speed and volume, and an optional review section. Relatively low error rates (M=1.7%) and high SUS scores (M=89.5) among blind subjects are consistent with previous findings. Error rates and satisfaction are not significantly different than those of sighted voters using both paper and DRE, and blind voters using a non-electronic interface. CHILVote significantly reduced the time it takes for blind subjects to vote, from 25.2 minutes (VotePAD) to 17.1 minutes (CHILVote). This is an improvement, but still over 2.5 times slower than sighted subjects voting on an identical ballot. The integration of accessibility into mainstream technology often has benefits beyond allowing more of the population access to a system. This research provides a comparison point and guidelines for future studies of accessibility solutions.

Syfte: Syftet med denna studie var att beskriva hur mammor med synnedsättning och barn i åldern 0-16 år upplever sin psykosociala hälsa samt hur de hanterar sin situation. Metod: En deskriptiv studie med en kvalitativ ansats. Data analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys enligt Graneheim och Lundman. Totalt analyserades intervjuer med åtta informanter. Resultat: Analysen resulterade i fem kategorier och 20 subkategorier: Att vara förälder med synnedsättning, att som synskadad möta sin omgivning, att få stöd, att hantera vardagen, att fysiskt och psykiskt påverkas av sin situation.  Resultaten visade att mammor med synnedsättning med barn i åldern 0-16 år utsattes för ökad psykosocialt stress. De höga krav de själva ställde på sig, den tid och energi som synnedsättningen tog i anspråk samt genom att de valde att inte berätta för sin omgivning att de hade en synnedsättning ansågs vara en del av förklaringen. Resultaten visade även att mammor med synnedsättning upplevde att de för det mesta blev bra bemötta samt att det sociala nätverket var viktigt för att få vardagen att gå ihop. / Aim: The aim of this study was to describe how visually impaired mothers with children aged 0-16 years experienced their psychosocial health and how they handle their situation. Method: A descriptive qualitative interview study.  Data analysis was performed by qualitative content analysis according to Graneheim och Lundman. A total of eight interviews were analysed. Results: The analysis yielded five categories containing a total of 20 sub-categories: to be a visually impaired parent, to encounter your environment, to get support, to handle everyday life, to be psychologically and physically affected by the situation. The study concludes that visually impaired mothers with children aged 0-16 years were more prone to psychosocial stress. This, according to the results, is due to the high demands they have on themselves, the time and energy everything takes when you are visually impaired and by choosing to not tell people around you about your visual impairment. The results also show that visually impaired mothers mostly experience positive attitudes and that the individual social network is important in order to make ends meet in everyday life.

Federal and state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies are putting increased emphasis on, and providing more resources for, self-employment for individuals who are blind or visually-impaired since the Rehabilitation Act was amended in 1998. Additional emphasis is being placed on self-employment because VR system consumers – especially those who are blind or visually-impaired – are disproportionately likely to have difficulty obtaining other kinds of competitive employment in the aftermath of the 2007-2009 recession. The purpose of this quantitative study is to identify variables in the administrative records of the federal Rehabilitation Service Agency that impact self-employment outcomes and earnings among blind or visually-impaired consumers. The file, comprised of 13,998 cases closed in Texas from Fiscal Years 2008 through 2012, spans the national recession and subsequent slow recovery. From the original file, 798 cases closed through self-employment were examined by employment status at application, cost of services and returns on investments (ROI). This study found those who were self-employed at application were 50 times more likely to be self-employed at closure. Those who received assessments, diagnosis and treatment, technical assistance, and rehabilitation services were more likely to be self-employed at closure. The variables most closely related to weekly earnings at closure for self-employed consumers were: gender (male), being self-employed at application and receiving some form of rehabilitation technology. Disproportionate numbers of those who were self-employed at application were 55 to 65 and self-identified as White only with weekly earnings at application above the mean for the entire population of consumers whose cases were closed through self-employment. They received the fewest services on average over the shortest period of time at the lost average cost. Returns on investments in serving those who were self-employed at application were positive but small. The average cost of services provided to those employed at application was the highest. However, on average, they experienced decreases in the hours worked per week and weekly earnings. Thus, returns on investments were, on average, negative. Limitations of the study, implications for practice, and future research are discussed. / text

<p> Centre of pressure (CP) excursion frequency characteristics of normal and visually impaired children were examined. Thirty-six normal (N) children and 12 visually impaired (VI) children stood on a force platform under 4 conditions (eyes open or closed, normal or foam surface). CP excursions were analyzed by fast Fourier transformation. Total power was calculated between 0-4 Hz, and percent of total power was calculated in the low (0-1 Hz) and high (1-4 Hz) bands. Linear regression was performed on logarithmically transformed data and the slope was used to compare the relative power at low and high frequencies. Analysis of covariance removed the variance due to height in the N children. The Mann-Whitney test compared theN and VI children. Total power decreased with age. Young children (4-7 years) had more high frequency power. Young children may respond intermittently to feedback with ballistic type movements while older children may continuously monitor and respond to sensory feedback. Vision helped control CP adjustments, but power did not increase between 0-1 Hz with eyes closed. VI had higher total power on the normal surface. With eyes closed the differences were more obvious in the older children (10-12 years) which suggests vision is important in development to fine-tune the sensory systems. The foam reduced pressor receptor feedback, reducing the advantage of more finely tuned somatosense in N children. VI children had more low frequency power than N children (A-P). Young VI children did not have a large amount of high frequency power, as the N children did, suggesting that VI children may adapt at a younger age to continuously monitor and respond to feedback without relying on intermittent ballistic type responses. </p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Accessibility is important in the development of digital products as well as in physical products. An accessible product enables all people to use it, whether they have a disability or not. This thesis focuses on accessibility for visually impaired people in a music streaming service on desktop. Many music streaming services for desktop are built with web technologies, including Spotify. The aim of this thesis was to evaluate the accessibility status of the Spo- tify desktop application as well as develop accessibility guidelines fo- cused on a music streaming service. A user test was performed to in- vestigate the accessibility status of the desktop application. Existing accessibility guidelines was studied and used together with the results of the user test to develop accessibility guidelines applicable to a music streaming service. It was found that the Spotify desktop application had many accessibility issues and these were considered when developing accessibility guide- lines. The existing guidelines studied was the WCAG 2.0 guidelines developed by W3C. These were read through completely and compiled in Chapter 4 of this report. The result of the thesis was accessibility guidelines suitable for a music streaming service on desktop. Since music streaming applications can be developed using different techniques and frameworks these guide- lines should be used as a guide on how to implement accessibility and needs to be customized for each use case. Though the fundamentals of the guidelines should be applicable to most music streaming desktop applications.

This dissertation presents work towards the development of a multiple finger, worn, dynamic display device, which utilizes a method of texture encoded information to haptically render graphical images for individuals who are blind or visually impaired. The device interacts directly with the computer screen, using the colors and patterns displayed by the image as a means to encode complex patterns of vibrotactile output, generating the texture feedback to render the image. In turn, the texture feedback was methodically designed to enable parallel processing of certain coarse information, speeding up the exploration of the diagram and improving user performance. The design choices were validated when individuals who are blind or visually impaired, using the multi-fingered display system, performed three-times better using textured image representations versus outline representations. Furthermore, in an open-ended object identification task, the display device saw on average two-times better performance accuracy than that previously observed for raised-line diagrams, the current standard for tactile diagrams.

Researchers have learned much about how sighted individuals seek information on Web sites - for example, users follow "information scent" as they move from page to page, and individual differences may impact successful information seeking on the Web. While it is possible that individuals with disabilities, especially those with severe visual impairments, perform information-seeking activities in a similar manner, little is known about how individuals who use screen readers to navigate actually seek information on the Web. In this study, we used both qualitative and quantitative measures to investigate the Web navigation techniques of four screen-reader users and how a user’s experience affects these navigation techniques and his or her ability to successfully complete an information-finding task. We compared metrics for between-page and within-page navigation to studies of sighted users. We also considered how a Web site’s compliance with Section 508 guidelines affects the overall information-finding experience of a visually-impaired individual. We discovered that among the four individuals in this study, user experience was not necessarily indicative of a successful information-finding experience. As individuals, the participants' navigation techniques varied widely; as a group, they generally searched more frequently and used the back button less frequently than has been reported for sighted individuals. Screen-reader users in this study followed a more flimsy, linear navigation style and generally used scrolling actions rather than searching actions. When using a Web site that has a Section 508 compliant home page, we found that the screen-reader users in this study completed information-finding tasks significantly more quickly, used significantly fewer actions, and reported a more satisfying information-finding experience. They were also more successful at finding the information goal and encountered fewer impasses. Using both quantitative and qualitative measures was critical in this study. The quantitative metrics allowed us to compare values and the qualitative data provided additional insight into individual differences as well as allowing a deeper understanding of the quantitative data. The information from this study contributes to the growing body of research knowledge about screen-reader users. It also contributes a new understanding of screen-reader users that can be used by the worldwide community of Web developers, designers, and users. / text