89 Abstract This examined diploma thesis focuses on the sphere of tertiary education and its aim was especially to examine the study conditions of university students with visual impairment. The basis was to study professional literature and other sources to build a theoretical framework. It was essential to create an image of the student with visual impairment that the visual handicap and thereunder constraints were covered and it was also necessary to describe the young adulthood specifics. An important step was to characterize the environment wherein these student move. To do this I used legislative documents and provisions and tried to delineate any difficulties and implemented solutions. I also introduced research which previously examined this field and provided relevant information, too. This was the foundation for the practical part of this paper. It contained the survey wherein I addressed a few visually impaired students who conveyed their findings regarding their study conditions. I carried out semi-structural interviews with them and analyzed the obtained data with the help of the open coding method. I summarized the resulted findings in the final section and tried to suggest further steps. The first chapter dealt with the definition of the visually impaired individual. At first, visual...

The paper addresses issues of media education in blind high-school students, especially in the topical context of digital media. The theoretical part devotes to problems of education of visually impaired persons. Next, concern the subsumption of media education as a cross- sectional subject into Czech primary and high-schools education. This part is also concerned with specific digital media and extensive opportunities of its utilization for visually impaired persons. In the experimental part of the paper, discrete components of digital literacy of sightless high-school students are analysed. The method of focused (semi-structured) interviews was selected. Interviews were executed with ten visually impaired high-school students and subsequently analysed with the help of qualitative content analysis. The aim of the paper is to give a notice on dependence of blind people to digital media and its specifics and, in this conjunction, emphasise the importance of media education.

This thesis is loosely based on the author's previous bachelor thesis, which dealt with beginnings of a systematic care for the blind in the Czech lands in the early 19th century and with development of this care during the 19th and the following centuries. It described the foundation of the current School of Jaroslav Ježek in the Loretánská street in Prague 1, the establishment of the so called Klárův ústav in Prague 4 and of the Jan Deyl Conservatory and Secondary School for the Visually Impaired on Maltese square in Prague 1. The essential part of this work was the tribute to the personality of PhDr. Jan Drtina, who was a pianist, a music educator and for a long period the director of the Jan Deyl Conservatory and Secondary School for the Visually Impaired. The main part of this thesis is a testimony of selected graduates of the Jan Deyl Conservatory and Secondary School for the Visually Impaired who are from different generations and who have various degrees of their visual handicap. This work focuses on their childhood, studies and especially on their employment. Furthermore, this thesis covers attitudes and opinions of former administration members of this special school. The work also informs about the current trend of the integrative education of visually impaired. The attachments describe primarily...

This thesis proposes a concept for exploring cities with an inclusive map. Most of current studies and projects only include one kind of user groups if creating systems for navigation and exploring new areas. Often, if creating a system for a very exclusive user group, e. g. visually impaired, other user groups are not considered. Though in order to create an accessible system, studies should include the user in the range of the most inclusive and most exclusive user groups. This is why we tried to create the concept of a design for an accessible city map under the approach of inclusive design. Since around 15 per cent of the world population suffer from some kind of disability, we decided to start with the most exclusive users of a city map – visually impaired. Therefore, theoretical and practical human-centred design methods are used to create a prototype hand in hand with the future user groups. The details used in the design process incorporates data from 10 survey answers from visually impaired people as well as data from 10 interviews with sighted people and a workshop with six people from different professions out of sociology, tourism marketing, HCI and language sciences. Additionally, at the end of the process, an evaluation with three visually impaired and two sighted people was used to prove the concept of the created prototype. The prototype was created with different digital fabrication and IoT tools and technologies. It should help to make public spaces more accessible and explorable. We hope to deliver a base idea of an accessible city map, which shows how to include inclusive design in the regular design process, in order to design without exceptions. The evaluation showed that our idea worked and that even though the users' groups are very different, they have a lot in common.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-13T14:10:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Claudia Falchetti.pdf: 1046264 bytes, checksum: ed2ea5559635f1dbbd09bda2227ae58d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-11-12 / The purpose of this paper was to examine the vulnerability perceived by visually impaired consumers. By analysing the narratives of sixteen people that have acquired visual impairment, was developed an understanding of the internal and external factors that affect their degree of vulnerability and identified their coping strategies. Data analysis consisted of latent content analysis, which focus on content interpretation and on a search for the meaning of the particular experiences, events, and states reported by the respondents. These were divided into three profiles that differ with respect to how internal and external resources are inter-related in the face of consumer vulnerability. Results show how emotional wellbeing, consumption-facilitating social support, acceptance, autonomy and perceptions about marketplace difficulties relate to coping mechanisms. This study makes a contribution to consumer vulnerability literature both by furthering the research on the vulnerability perceived by visually impaired consumers and by identifying the mitigating or aggravating factors related to those individuals, along with their coping strategies. Results are reported that may lead to the development of both other research projects that aim to understand these people and programmes that lead to improved quality of life and wellbeing for these particular consumers. / A proposta deste estudo foi examinar a vulnerabilidade percebida pelo consumidor deficiente visual no mercado de consumo. Ao analisar as narrativas de dezesseis pessoas com deficiência visual adquirida, foi desenvolvido um entendimento dos fatores internos e externos que afetam seu grau de vulnerabilidade e identificadas suas estratégias de adaptação. A análise dos dados consistiu em análise de conteúdo latente, que foca na interpretação e na busca pelo significado de experiências particulares, eventos e estados reportados pelos respondentes. Estes foram divididos em três perfis que se distinguem na forma em que seus recursos internos e externos se relacionam ao lidar com a vulnerabilidade de consumo. Os resultados mostram como o bem-estar emocional, o suporte social para a facilitação do consumo, a aceitação da deficiência, autonomia e percepções sobre as dificuldades encontradas no mercado estão relacionados a mecanismos de adaptação. Este material traz contribuição à literatura sobre a vulnerabilidade do consumidor ao aprofundar a investigação da vulnerabilidade percebida pelo consumidor deficiente visual e ao identificar fatores atenuantes ou agravantes, bem como as estratégias de adaptação desses indivíduos. Além disso, apresenta resultados que contribuem com o desenvolvimento de outros projetos de pesquisa que buscam entender estes consumidores e de programas que levam ao aumento de sua qualidade de vida e seu bem-estar.

Auditory graphs and active point estimation provide an inexpensive, accessible alternative for low vision and blind K-12 students using number lines and coordinate graphs. In the first phase of this research program, a series of four psychophysics studies demonstrated an interactive auditory number line that enables blind, low vision, and sighted people to find small targets with a laptop, headphones, and a mouse or a keyboard. The Fitts' Law studies showed that, given appropriate auditory feedback, blind people can use a mouse. In addition, auditory feedback can generate target response patterns similar to when people use visual feedback. Phase two introduced SQUARE, a novel method for building accessible alternatives to existing education technologies. The standards-driven and teacher-directed approach generated 17 graphing standards for sixth grade mathematics, all of which emphasized point estimation. It also showed that how only few basic behavioral components are necessary for these graphing problems. The third phase evaluated active point estimation tools in terms of training, classroom situations, and a testing situation. This work shows that students can learn to graph in K-12 environments, regardless of their visual impairment. It also provides several technologies used for graphing, and methods to further develop education accessibility research.

Due to the shortage of geographical information suitable for the visually impaired, the current navigation systems fail to provide high quality performance. The results of an international survey on the user needs are discussed in this article. A collaborative accessibility approach (COACH) is proposed to not only extend accessible geo-information, but also offer an opportunity to share experiences among peers. Related topics are addressed, like map data, multimodal annotation, and privacy.

Die in MEDIBUS organisierten Blindenbüchereien sehen sich als Partner der kommerziellen Verlagswelt und nicht als deren Konkurrenten. Die sehr geringen Auflagenhöhen und die speziellen Anforderungen bei der Aufbereitung von Literatur in Brailleschrift und Großdruck wecken in aller Regel nur wenig verlegerisches Interesse. Die wachsende Auswahl an mobilen Endgeräten, Medienkonvergenz und Diversifikation von Angeboten sind Chancen der digitalen Revolution, die es ermöglichen, auch Menschen mit speziellen Bedürfnissen zeitnah und in adäquater Qualität Wissen zugänglich zu machen. libreka! und die DZB kooperieren im Projekt „Leibniz – Sach- und Fachbuchaufbereitung für Blinde und Sehbehinderte“, um PDF- und Satzdaten zu verarbeiten und deren digitale Verbreitung sowohl für sehende als auch für nichtsehende Leserinnen und Leser zu forcieren. DAISY-Standards und -Technologien sind dabei der Schlüssel zum Erfolg.

In this presentation, various projects at DZB will be described, concerning various collaborations with publishing houses and Libreka! – an online platform of the German association of publishers “Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels”, to improve the workflow of transformation of typesetting data into the DAISY 3 format. By developing adaptive content processing facilities, this data can be used to increase the availability of publications in Braille, DAISY and large Print.

Percevoir son espace d’évolution est une activité déterminante dans l’élaboration des relations spatiales que nous tissons avec notre environnement. En neurosciences comportementales, l’étude de ces relations a généralement été abordée selon deux perspectives théoriques. L’une d’elle s’attache à décrire les relations au monde au travers des processus de perception directe impliquant notamment la notion d’affordances (i.e. de possibilités d’actions naturellement offertes par l’environnement) ; tandis que d’autres s’intéressent d’avantage aux aspects cognitifs de la perception avec la mise en place de processus de représentation spatiale. Cette dernière reflète notamment l’existence d’état(s) représenté(s) qu’il est possible de décrire à travers de la combinaison d’espaces stables appelés référentiels spatiaux. L’objectif de ce travail de thèse vise à mieux comprendre la contribution du référentiel égocentré (i.e. corporel) dans la perception de l’espace géocentré (i.e. gravitaire). La question a notamment été abordée autour de deux axes de recherche interrogeant d’une part (i) l’origine de l’influence égocentrée préalablement observée dans le noir sur la perception géocentrée, et d’autre part (ii) la présence du phénomène égocentré dans un contexte visuel plus enrichi suite à l’ajout d’un flux optique. Pour ce faire quatre études centrées autour d’un paradigme d’estimation des possibilités de franchissement d’obstacles hauts ont été réalisées. Pris dans leur ensemble, les résultats expérimentaux soulignent le caractère particulièrement puissant et complexe du phénomène égocentré corporel observé sur la perception de l’espace gravitaire. Ces résultats, discutés en termes d’interpénétrabilité entre référentiels spatiaux offrent un support d’étude intéressant sur la manière dont les référentiels sont utilisés dans les processus de représentation spatiale. / Perceiving space is a relevant task in determining our relationships with the environment. In behavioral neuroscience, investigating this spatial relationship can classically be explored with two theoretical approaches. The first one uses direct perception to describe the spatial relationships, involving affordances (i.e. the action ability naturally offer by the environment). The other one investigates the cognitive aspect of perception implying the use of spatial representation process. The later one traduces the existence of represented states which can be described through the interaction of different stable states called spatial reference frames. The present work investigates the contribution of the egocentric reference frame (body-related) on the perception of the geocentric space (earth-based). This was questioned through two research lines, (i) the origin of egocentric influence previously observed in darkness upon geocentric perception, (ii) the existence of the egocentric phenomenon in an enriched visual scene. To answer these questions, four experiments were conducted where the paradigm of passing under high obstacles was used. Overall, these results stress the powerful and complex aspect of the egocentric phenomenon observed upon geocentric perception. This work, discussed in term of interpenetrability between reference frames, provide an interesting support on the way how spatial reference frames are used in perceiving space.