In this research we introduce a novel reading system that enables Individuals with Blindness<br />or Severe Visual Impairment (IBSVI) to have equivalent spatial reading experience to their<br />sighted counterparts, in terms of being able to engage in different reading strategies e.g.<br />scanning, skimming, and active reading. IBSVI are enabled to read in a self-paced manner<br />with spatial access to the original layout of any electronic text document. This system<br />renders text on iPad-type devices, and reads aloud each word touched by the user\'s finger.<br />The user could move her finger smoothly along the lines to read continuously with the<br />support of tactile landmarks. A tactile overlay on the iPad screen helps IBSVI to navigate<br />a page, furnishing a framework of tactile landmarks to give IBSVI a sense of place on the<br />page. As the user moves her finger along the tangible pattern of the overlay, the text on the<br />screen that is touched is rendered audibly to speech. The system supports IBSVI to develop<br />and maintain a cognitive map of the structure and the layout of the page. IBSVI are enabled<br />to fuse audio, tactile landmarks, and spatial information in order to read.<br />The system\'s initial design is founded on a theoretical hypothesis. A participatory design<br />approach with IBSVI consultants was then applied to refine the initial design. The re"fined<br />design was tested in a usability study, which revealed two major issues with the tested<br />design. These issues are related to the lack of instant feedback from the system (psycho-<br />motorical problem), and the lack of conveying the semantic level of the page structure.<br />We adapted the reader design to solve the usability problems. The improved design was<br />tested in an experience sampling study. The results showed a leap in the system usability.<br />IBSVI participants successfully self-paced read spatial text. Further reading support was<br />then added to the system to improve the user experience while reading and interacting with<br />the system. We tested the latest design of the reader system with respect to its featured<br />function of enabling self-paced reading and re-finding information. A decomposition study<br />was conducted to evaluate the main components of the system; the tactile overlay, and the<br />intelligent active reading support. The results showed that both components are required<br />to achieve the best performance in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, and spatial perception.<br />We conducted an evaluation study to compare our reader system to the state-of-the-art<br />iBook with VoiceOver. The results show that our reader system is more effective than iBook<br />with VoiceOver in finding previously read information and in estimating the layout of the<br />page, implying that IBSVI were able to construct a cognitive map for the pages they read,<br />and perform advanced reading strategies. Our goal is to to enable IBSVI to access digital<br />reading materials effectively, so that they may have equal learning opportunities as their<br />sighted counterparts. / Ph. D.

abstract: Traveling is one of the most enriching and fulfilling activities for most people. Yet factors such as crowded airports, long waiting queues, and inaccessible features of airports and airplanes often make traveling stressful for many individuals including those with disabilities. This qualitative phenomenological research study examined the underexplored area of traveling with a vision disability. Framed around a Co-cultural theoretical perspective, the study examined the lived experiences of vision impaired individuals with regard to receiving disability assistance services during air travel. The study specifically explored the communication strategies that vision impaired individuals employed to manage their assistance-related air travel needs. The study used in-depth interviews for data collection, and a combination of thematic analysis techniques for data analysis. Findings indicated four categories of assistance-related issues that vision impaired participants frequently experienced in their travel: personnel training issues, system issues, policy issues, and physical accessibility issues. The study also identified four Co-cultural communication orientations that participants used in navigating air travel: assertive accommodation, aggressive accommodation, assertive assimilation, and nonassertive assimilation. In addition, the study identified a new Co-cultural communication practice - normalizing for self. Findings of this research conclude that despite three decades since the passage of United States legislation to protect the rights of disabled people, vision impaired travelers still frequently experience inequitable air travel practices. The study offers recommendations on pressing issues concerning policies and regulations that can inform airline executives and federal legislators in facilitating a more equitable and pleasurable air travel experience for those with vision disabilities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Communication 2020

This bachelor thesis researches the question of “How do Swedish interior design companies tailor their e-commerce marketing strategies to cope with the phenomenon of advertising blindness?” through a qualitative case study. In order to conduct this research, relevant aspects of the phenomenon have been analysed in relation to actual marketing strategies. By following the qualitative methods with a semi-structured interview and content analysis, a deeper understanding of the phenomenon and how Swedish interior design companies cope with it can be gathered. The thesis follows a deductive approach, due to that the research topic in the specified industry was considered rather unexplored, thus a better preunderstanding of the topic was deemed relevant. The existing knowledge and research have been compiled and resulted in a conceptual framework. The pre-existing studies on advertising blindness have been conducted in other industries; this thesis will thus be founding its analysis on previous studies but in a new industry with different types of consumers and marketing. The analysis of the empirical findings encompassed a discussion about how theoretical models and practical marketing methods are used by a Swedish interior design company. The conclusions drawn from the analysis present both implications, recommendations, and limitations. The empirical findings showed that advertising blindness is not a phenomenon actively planned against in the interior design case company that was researched for this thesis. The main theoretical implications derived from this thesis, was giving marketing students and marketing managers insight into the importance of understanding the advertising blindness phenomenon. The main practical implication was found to be that although certain KPI are used to monitor consumer behaviour and purchases, advertising blindness has not been prioritized in the measurements. Thus, as omni channels such as the case company have to increase their focus on e-commerce, the attention to advertising blindness has to be more present from managers. Furthermore, a continuation of this research would find value in conducting research from the consumer perspective in order to give marketing managers a second perspective that could show the importance of studying advertising blindness.

The purpose of this study has been to explore which experiences of exposure transnational adoptees choses to tell about in their Instagram accounts and create an understanding for their experiences and thoughts with the help from theories and earlier research. We have by performing a netnografic study, found our empiric material from two transnational adoptees accounts on Instagram to answer our question formulations: Which experiences of exposure does transnational adoptees publish on Instagram? and: How does transnational adoptees explain the correlation between these experiences and their adoption? It appears in our empiric conclusion and in the analysis that themes of affiliation, indebtedness, racism, colour blindness and identity occur in both transnational adoptees account when it comes to exposure in relation to adoption. These experiences and thoughts are analysed with help from earlier research and theories. The theories we used are postcolonial perspective, stigma theory, intersectionality and social identity theory. In the discussion, conclusions are made about the analysis, where it among other things shows that experiences and thoughts of indebtedness appears to be a larger theme than in our selected earlier research. This phenomenon can be understood using the postcolonial theory, that gives a possible explanation about the occurrence of indebtedness. We discuss further about the relations between physical appearance, affiliation, and lack of racial reflection as how they appear to be distinctive factors for exposedness of the transnational adoptees in this study.

The secondary analysis undertaken for this MPH dissertation examines the global prevalence of trichiasis in relation to gender in trachoma endemic countries. Part A is the research protocol which outlines the background and the process of this research. This study is a population-based analytical study using data from the Global Trachoma Mapping Project (GTMP). GTMP was a standardized population-based trachoma prevalence survey undertaken to provide trachoma prevalence estimates. GTMP data was collected using the World Health Organisation–recommended population based prevalence survey methodology. Trachoma suspect district were identified for inclusion and multistage random sampling was used to sample households for examination of residents for clinical trachoma. Part B presents the background and highlights the importance of this research by exploring the existing theoretical and empirical literature relevant to the topic. It describes how trachoma is transmitted, its clinical manifestations, and the way it can lead to blindness. Results from previous studies on gender and trichiasis are presented. Part C presents the research project in a format suitable for journal submission. The background of this research project is summarized and the meta-analysis is conducted at the global level, at the country level, the regional level, the state level and at the EU level but all in accordance to prevalence of trichiasis in the EUs. The implications of the findings are discussed and limitations in interpretation presented.

Folklore has long held that blind people gain, relative to normal people, in their sensitivity to other sensory modalities. Although supported only by equivocal evidence, this position probably first appeared in mythology in early Greek literature. Oedipus Rex was attributed greater awareness of people’s nature after this blindness. It is still a prevalent myth in contemporary American culture, to the extent that it appears in “Little Orphan Annie.” Experimental attempts at verification of this point began several years ago, but it remains a controversial issue. Literature on the topic can be divided up into several content areas: the relevance of blindness to auditory sensitivity, the relevance of blindness to tactile sensitivity, the developmental effect of blindness and central vs. peripheral blindness and it affects perception. Studies sampled there represent these content areas.

Research has shown that people often fail to notice changes to visual scenes. This phenomenon is known as change blindness. This study investigated the effect of facial feature transformations on change blindness using change detection tasks involving a person as the object of change. 301 participants viewed a photo-story comprised of a few still frames. In the final frame, a selected facial feature of a character in the story was altered. Four different photo-stories were used, each utilising a different alteration. Questionnaires designed to determine whether the change was detected were administered. Results showed that changes to facial features considered to be more salient produced higher levels of change detection. A flicker test using the same images from the photo-story was administered to a further 75 participants and showed a similar pattern of results. It was concluded that in order to detect change, the changing stimuli have to be both salient and meaningful.

In this project a dashboard was created on behalf of the company Combitech who wanted to visualize a part of a workgroup’s information flow in hope of improving their communication. The only restriction was that it could not be interactive. The focus and goal with this study was to explore what factors one should keep in mind when designing a non-interactive dashboard. The two main theories used to guide this work were: information visualization and accessibility (focus on color vision deficiency). Designing digital products with accessibility needs in mind is not standard practice, but needs to be as society is becoming more filled with them. The process of creating the dashboard started with a literature review to read relevant works to gain insight. Interviews and user evaluations were conducted to gather insight from the users. An accessibility evaluation was performed to check for potential accessibility problems with the design. The result of the study suggests that information visualization and accessibility can be used together to produce a non-interactive dashboard that is viewed as both useful and appealing. The aspects used to achieve this were: understanding and involving the users to be able to prioritize information, being aware of how human perception works and how to apply color in an accessible way. / I detta projekt skapades en dashboard på uppdrag av företaget Combitech som ville visualisera en del av en av deras arbetsgruppers informationsflöde i hopp om att förbättra deras kommunikation. Den enda begränsningen var att den inte kunde vara interaktiv. Fokuset och målet med denna studie var att utforska vilka faktorer man bör tänka på när man designar en icke-interaktiv dashboard. De två huvudsakliga teorierna som användes för att styra detta arbete var: informationsvisualisering och tillgänglighet (fokus på defekt färgseende). Att designa digitala produkter med tillgänglighetsbehov i åtanke är inte standardpraxis, men behöver bli det då samhället blir mer fyllt av dem.  Processen att skapa dashboarden började med en litteraturgenomgång för att läsa relevanta verk för att få insikt. Intervjuer och användarutvärderingar genomfördes för att samla åsikter från användarna. En tillgänglighetsutvärdering gjordes för att kontrollera eventuella tillgänglighetsproblem med designen.   Resultatet av studien tyder på att informationsvisualisering och tillgänglighet kan användas tillsammans för att skapa en icke-interaktiv dashboard som ses som både användbar och tilltalande. Aspekterna som användes för att uppnå detta var: förstå och involvera användarna för att kunna prioritera information, vara medveten om hur mänsklig perception fungerar och hur man kan applicera färg på ett tillgängligt sätt.

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This dissertation examines the literary depiction of physical disability in Dante’s Commedia, Convivio, and his other works using a two-pronged approach: answering Barolini’s call to historicize and incorporating disability theorists’ models of and approach to investigating medieval disability. Blameless Defect: A Dantean Model of Disability thus follows the theological, philosophical, medical, and legal aspects of disability in Duecento and Trecento Florence and within the broader context of Europe and the Mediterranean. This broad historical context, as well as contemporaneous writers’ treatment of disability, is used to contextualize Dante’s own attitude and representation of physical disabilities, specifically deafness, blindness, and mobility disabilities. Dante’s representation reflects and engages with the medieval concept of virtue or vice that can be read on the body; specifically, Dante’s engagement with deafness in the Convivio reveals a Dantean category of blameless physical defect that indicates separation between disability and sin and exonerates those who have impediments that limit their knowledge, such as those with lived experience of disability. This treatment of blameless deafness is contextualized through its philosophical sources. The dissertation considers whether blindness and mobility disabilities fit into what I term the Dantean category of “blameless defect.” Mobility disabilities are represented throughout the Commedia; their presence is tied to sin largely within metaphorical contexts or as the lesser of a hierarchy of sins. Similarly, blindness is present throughout the Commedia and is even included among the divine punishments, albeit in a temporary manner. Further, Dante, often using simile or metaphor, represents blindness in the Commedia to illustrate both spiritual and human understanding. Finally, Dante’s own blindness is read within the theoretical framework of “disability gain” as an approach which sees the author’s text open to greater possibilities. Blameless Defect, on the whole, demonstrates a sympathetic and non-normative Dantean attitude to the physically disabled, whom Dante represents vividly and with great accuracy. Dante’s portrait of the physically disabled thus stands in contrast to the attitudes, practices, and laws of his times.