This thesis examines the accuracy of accessibility information for parks and the related experiences of visitors. It explores whether or not there is a gap between the information that is made available to the public and the experiences that are available on the ground. People with mobility impairments encounter barriers to movement. The provision of information on accessibility may assist those with impairments to select recreational opportunities that are compatible with their interests and abilities. Accordingly, the availability and accuracy of information on accessibility is evaluated through comparison with on-site field observations. Four parks of different management types – local, regional, provincial and national – are examined. Promotional information was gathered primarily from brochures and websites. Key informant interviews were conducted and on-site measurements of accessibility were taken. The quantity and accuracy of information on accessibility varied between the parks. Inconsistencies were found between the information on accessibility and the on-site situations. Details on park features like parking, trails, washrooms, visitor centers and campsites lacked volume, specifics and accuracy, and these features are important to individuals with a mobility impairment. Stronger links should be established between the monitoring of accessibility and the timely, accurate provision of accessibility information. There is willingness among park officials to address accessibility issues but financial constraints are widely regarded as being an impediment to action. As such, physical improvements to accessibility are most likely to occur as a part of general maintenance schedules. Nevertheless, regular systematic monitoring and reporting is not expensive and would benefit park management by enabling them to provide more accurate information to the public. The study also suggests that greater engagement with the impaired community could be beneficial to parks, official, and visitors.

published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

Closed captioning has not improved since early 1970s, while film and television technology has changed dramatically. Closed captioning only conveys verbatim dialogue to the audience while ignoring music, sound effects and speech prosody. Thus, caption viewers receive limited and often erroneous information. My thesis research attempts to add some of the missing sounds and emotions back into captioning using animated text. The study involved two animated caption styles and one conventional style: enhanced, extreme and closed. All styles were applied to two clips with animations for happiness, sadness, anger, fear and disgust emotions. Twenty-five hard of hearing and hearing participants viewed and commented on the three caption styles and also identified the character’s emotions. The study revealed that participants preferred enhanced, animated captions. Enhanced captions appeared to improve access to the emotive information in the content. Also, the animation for fear appeared to be most easily understood by the participants.

Closed captioning has not improved since early 1970s, while film and television technology has changed dramatically. Closed captioning only conveys verbatim dialogue to the audience while ignoring music, sound effects and speech prosody. Thus, caption viewers receive limited and often erroneous information. My thesis research attempts to add some of the missing sounds and emotions back into captioning using animated text. The study involved two animated caption styles and one conventional style: enhanced, extreme and closed. All styles were applied to two clips with animations for happiness, sadness, anger, fear and disgust emotions. Twenty-five hard of hearing and hearing participants viewed and commented on the three caption styles and also identified the character’s emotions. The study revealed that participants preferred enhanced, animated captions. Enhanced captions appeared to improve access to the emotive information in the content. Also, the animation for fear appeared to be most easily understood by the participants.

This study explores the physical features in the urban setting that give rise to inequitable outcomes for people with disabilities (PWDs), in particular, those with mobility impairments. The objective is to identify the dynamic elements of local active mobility networks that act as barriers to PWDs. A review of the principles and metrics of contemporary urban and transportation planning theory and practice is undertaken. This is contrasted against studies that define the heterogeneous needs and preferences of the disabled population. From this, a new framework is introduced - social topography. This model visualizes the community as a network of opportunities embedded into the physical and socio-economic fabric of the community. It is used as a tool for assessing active mobility networks of three neighbourhoods centered on transportation hubs in southern British Columbia, Canada. The audits reveal that accessibility is a complex and dynamic concept that should inform urban and transportation planning policy and practice. The nuances of absolute and relative access challenges are revealed when the social topography framework is applied. In order to reduce the inequitable outcomes that exist, urban and transportation planning will need to reconsider the underlying principles implicitly and explicitly employed as well as the measures and tools deployed. In the end, individuals and communities will benefit from this more inclusive urban planning paradigm.

This thesis examines the accuracy of accessibility information for parks and the related experiences of visitors. It explores whether or not there is a gap between the information that is made available to the public and the experiences that are available on the ground. People with mobility impairments encounter barriers to movement. The provision of information on accessibility may assist those with impairments to select recreational opportunities that are compatible with their interests and abilities. Accordingly, the availability and accuracy of information on accessibility is evaluated through comparison with on-site field observations. Four parks of different management types – local, regional, provincial and national – are examined. Promotional information was gathered primarily from brochures and websites. Key informant interviews were conducted and on-site measurements of accessibility were taken. The quantity and accuracy of information on accessibility varied between the parks. Inconsistencies were found between the information on accessibility and the on-site situations. Details on park features like parking, trails, washrooms, visitor centers and campsites lacked volume, specifics and accuracy, and these features are important to individuals with a mobility impairment. Stronger links should be established between the monitoring of accessibility and the timely, accurate provision of accessibility information. There is willingness among park officials to address accessibility issues but financial constraints are widely regarded as being an impediment to action. As such, physical improvements to accessibility are most likely to occur as a part of general maintenance schedules. Nevertheless, regular systematic monitoring and reporting is not expensive and would benefit park management by enabling them to provide more accurate information to the public. The study also suggests that greater engagement with the impaired community could be beneficial to parks, official, and visitors.

To be inclusive, the Web needs published resources to be matched to individual users' needs and preferences for their perception and control. In a decade, this has not been achieved and many cannot make use of resources despite having appropriate facilities. This thesis argues that the necessary management of resources can be achieved with well-designed metadata. Demonstration and explanation of the accessibility problems, efforts to solve them and the current state of inaccessibility of Web resources, any resource that is available through the World Wide Web, is fundamental to the research. The author relies heavily on Dublin Core metadata as it is relatively easy to use; is probably the most populous metadata; can be managed with free software systems, and for commercial reasons. The research investigated what makes DC metadata, so apparently simple, powerful enough to be the most popular metadata because there is very little available that explains this. The thesis then documents the scientific view of metadata upon which effective use of metadata can be based in the context of accessibility. It argues, at a practical level, that metadata is essential and integral to any shift to an on-going process approach to accessibility. It contributes to the science of metadata in as much as it analyses, synthesizes, and articulates the characteristics of an essential infrastructure for a new approach to accessibility. The author argues in favour of an on-going process approach to accessibility of resources that supports continuous improvement of any given resource, not necessarily by the author of the resource, and not necessarily by design or with knowledge of the original author, by contributors who may be distributed globally. The thesis argues that the current dependence on production guidelines and post-production evaluation of resources as either universally accessible or otherwise, does not adequately provide for either the accessibility necessary for individuals or the continuous or evolutionary approach possible within the current Web environment. It argues that a distributed, social-networking view of the Web as interactive, combined with a social model of disability, given the management tools of machine-readable, interoperable AccessForAll metadata, as developed, can achieve the desired goals. It raises issues regarding its implementation in the distributed environment of the Web. Please note: The thesis is archived in a format that is not accessible to all and for this reason, the author may be contacted for alternative versions (liddy@sunriseresearch.org; liddy.nevile@gmail.com).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-118).

Orientador: Maria Cristina Gobbi / Banca: João Pedro Albino / Banca: Maria Ataide Malcher / Resumo: O deficiente visual é o público alvo da pesquisa, pois quando se fala em necessidades especiais, encontramos pessoas com as mais diversas precisões que carecem de alternativas de acesso as tecnologias em seu cotidiano. No decorrer deste trabalho tratamos sobre a deficiência visual, a legislação e demais dados pertinentes ao indivíduo com deficiência visual, que pode ser definido como pessoa que possui perda total ou parcial, congênita ou adquirida de sua visão. Abordamos quais tecnologias digitais estão disponíveis para inclusão dos deficientes visuais, momento em que foi sistematizada as análises sobre os softwares leitores de tela mais utilizados na atualidade por esse público alvo. Dando sequência, para possibilitar as análises da qualidade e usabilidade destes softwares, utilizamos as Normas NBR ISO/IEC 9128 e NBR ISO/IEC 14598 que regulamentam a questão de qualidade e usabilidade do produto de software. Posteriormente, com base nessas normas, foi então elaborado e aplicado um questionário para os deficientes visuais analisarem a qualidade e usabilidade dos softwares leitores de tela que eles utilizam no dia-a-dia. Com base nos resultados obtidos, elencamos sugestões para melhoria desses produtos, contribuições estas que poderão ser utilizadas por desenvolvedores para que cada dia mais se alcance a busca da efetiva acessibilidade para os deficientes visuais. / Abstract: The visually impaired (a blind person) is the target of this research, because when we talk about special needs, we find people with the most diverse needs of alternatives to access the technologies in their daily lives in the courses of this work we deal with a visual impaiment, legislation and other data related to individuals with visual impaiment, which can be defined as the person who has total or partial, congenital or acquired vision. We approached which digital technologies are available for the inclusion of the viaually impaired, at the moment in which the analyzes on the software's screen readers most used in the present time by this target audience. In order to make possible the analysis of the quality and usability of these software, we use the standards NBR ISO/IEC 9128 e NBR ISO/IEC 14598, which regulate the issue fo quality and usability of the software product. Subsenquetly, based on these standards, a questionnaire was then prepared and applied for the visually impaired to analyze the quality and usability of the screen readers software that they use in their everyday life. Based on the results obtained, we list a couple suggestions for improvement of these products, and some contributions that can be used by developers so that each day more people can reach the search for effective accessibility for the visually impaired / Mestre

This master thesis focuses on the problem of web sites auditing. The three main areas covered in the thesis are usability, accessibility and search engine optimization. These three categories are main elements resulting in good or bad website. The main aim of this thesis is to describe the basic rules and recommendation for each of these three categories. This area is undergoing very fast and neverending development so I will also try to cover latests trends and directions. The first, theoretical part, will result in selection of grading criterias based on each of the three categories. These criterias will be later used to analyze the biggest players in the area of agricultural companies and organizations. The result of this audit will be ranking of each company website together with recommendations how to improve them. It will be also possible to recognize the main mistakes and problems of commercial websites.