Navigating to different locations isn’t always easy. Imagine then how it is for people with a visual impairment to walk across the street or to get from one point to another. The Swedish Association of the Visually Impaired (SRF) has pointed out that today's society is not sufficiently accessible to people with visual impairment and there are improvements that need to get done. Technology is something that has evolved a lot this last decade and occurs today almost everywhere in our environment.In some areas, technology has facilitated people's daily life very much and we have therefore chosen to examine whether a combination of several technical functions integrated into the fictive artifact called Eyenavster can facilitate outdoor orientation and increase the accessibility for people with a visual impairment.Qualitative data collection methods have been used in this study by six interviews to answer our question. It was found that the fictional artifact Eyenavster could facilitate outdoor orientation in unfamiliar environment and on those occasions when people with a visual impairment get lost. / Att enkelt och smidigt kunna hitta till olika platser är inte alltid lätt, försök föreställa dig då hur det är för människor som har en synskada att bland annat gå tvärs över gatan eller att ta sig från punkt a till b. Synskadades Riksförbund (SRF) har påpekat att dagens samhälle inte är tillräckligt tillgänglig för människor som har en synskada och att en del förbättringar krävs för att åtgärda det. Teknik är något som har växt väldigt mycket under den senaste tiden och förkommer idag nästan överallt i vår omgivning.Inom vissa områden har tekniken underlättat människans vardag väldigt mycket, därför har vi i denna studie valt att undersöka om en kombination av ett flertal tekniska funktioner integrerade i den fiktiva artefakt Eyenavster kan underlätta utomhusorienteringen och därmed öka tillgängligheten för människor som har en synskada.I denna studie har en kvalitativ datainsamlingsmetod använts genom sex respondentintervjuer för att besvara vår frågeställning. Det framkommer att den fiktiva artefakten Eyenavster skulle kunna underlätta utomhusorienteringen i okända miljöer samt vid de tillfällen man går vilse.

This thesis explores how to design for the visually impaired. During the course of work, a literature study and interviews with blind and visually impaired people were conducted. The objective was to investigate what contextual information is wanted in new and unfamiliar spaces outside their home. The interviews also explored how they experience digital tools they are using today and what they think of the possibilities of voice and other user interfaces. The main finding from the study is that there are indications that multimodal interfaces are preferred. The interface should combine voice, haptic and graphics since the participants wanted to interact in different ways depending on functionality and context. Three main problem areas were identified, navigation, public transportation and shopping. Another result was that when developing for the visually impaired it should always be tested on people with a wide variation of vision loss to find the correct contextual information.

Braille literacy is an important and vital part of visually impaired and blind peoples’ everyday lives. The purpose of this paper was to evaluate different feedback modalities used in a smartphone game and analyze their impact and effectiveness on alphabetic braille learning. In this study, three different modalities were used and tested. These were tactile feedback, auditory feedback, and a combination of both. A quantitative method and a post-test consisting of braille writing and reading exercises was used to measure the effectiveness of each feedback modality. 18 people, equally distributed between the three different feedback modalities participated in the study. Each played the game using blindfolds. The result show that there was no statistically significant difference between the feedback modalities as determined by a one-way ANOVA test. However, a practical difference when playing the game was found. The respondents who used the combined feedback method performed better in the game. On average, the respondent learned to identify seven out of twelve braille characters and was able to read one out of five words in braille print. The study concluded that the game could be played autonomously and that the feedback modalities could be used separately or in combination with each other without affecting the knowledge post-test.

Magister Legum - LLM / South Africa

Magister Artium - MA / The purpose of the study was to investigate the everyday life information seeking behaviour of visually impaired students at Stellenbosch University. The study framed by the Every Day Life information behaviour model of Pamela McKenzie focused on the information behaviour of visually impaired students, how the visually impaired students obtain their information and the role of the Stellenbosch University library. The study was motivated by the vital need to seek out, listen to and act upon the voices of students with disabilities in an attempt to make higher education more inclusive to students with some form of disability or challenge. Twenty-one visually impaired students from various faculties of Stellenbosch University completed a questionnaire consisting of 23 questions administered by Stellenbosch University’s Braille Office. Students with visual impairments at Stellenbosch University will consult friends, family members and lecturers for information. They needed both personal and academic information. Students found it both easy and difficult to obtain needed academic information. The Internet was the major information resource used by all students. Students relied mainly on online full text journal articles and e-books obtained via the Internet, SU Library’s databases, SunScholar and e-journals for academic information. The main reasons for not using the SU library can be attributed to the inability to use printed resources, lack of facilities for visually impaired students, difficulty in navigating the physical library and lack of training in exploiting the library and its services. All students with visual impairment made use of assistive technology and relied heavily on the support and services of the Braille Office for additional academic information. The everyday behaviour of students with visual impairments at Stellenbosch University conform to McKenzie’s Everyday Life Information Behaviour model as these students sought actively to make contact with sources, identified likely sources, made use of serendipitous encounters, were were identified as information seekers and made use of people as gatekeepers to be referred to a source.

Orientadores: Vilson Zattera, Claudiney Rodrigues Carrasco / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Artes / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-26T08:37:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ota_Raphael_M.pdf: 1942405 bytes, checksum: 67ac0b8d3f41163bbd975075764231e7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: A partir das experiências do autor como espectador de cursos de formação em Musicografia Braille, foi notificado que muitos destes apresentam, quase que exclusivamente a grafia musical em braille, não contemplando e promovendo discussões sobre a educação inclusiva e situações individuais que tangem as circunstâncias de cada nível de deficiência visual. Visto a importância dos temas não abordados, este trabalho teve por finalidade apresentar propostas que possam auxiliar na realização de cursos de formação de profissionais aptos a trabalharem o ensino musical com alunos que tenham deficiência visual. Para atingir tal objetivo foram feitos os seguintes estudos: histórico sobre os cursos de formação de professores tanto para educação regular quanto para a educação especial; o sistema braille e o campo de educação musical para pessoas com deficiência visual; o processo de ensino e aprendizagem de pessoas com esta deficiência; e os conceitos que o professor deve ter conhecimento ao trabalhar com este público. A partir deste material e de experiências práticas, propostas são elencadas estruturando assim um possível curso de formação de profissionais para este campo de educação. Os resultados desta pesquisa objetivam assessorar professores de música que almejam realizar cursos de formação, lhes oferecendo diretrizes para uma melhor condução e estruturação pedagógica / Abstract: From the author's experiences as a spectator of training courses in Braille Music Notation was reported that many of these presents almost exclusively the musical writing in braille, not contemplating and promoting discussions on inclusive education and individual situations that concern the circumstances of each level of visual impairment. Seen the importance of the topics not broached, this paper aims to present proposals that can help in conducting training courses to professionals capable to work music education to students who have visual disabilities. To achieve this objective, the following studies were made: the teacher training courses historical for both regular education and special education; Braille system and the field of music education for people with visual disabilities; the teaching and learning process of people with this disability; and concepts that the teacher should have known when working with this students. From this material and practical experiences, proposals are listed structuring thus a possible training course for professionals to this field of education. These results aim to assist music teachers who aspire conduct training courses, offering them guidelines to better conduct and pedagogical structuring / Mestrado / Fundamentos Teoricos / Mestre em Música

Acessibilidade na Web tem como objetivo possibilitar que qualquer pessoa possa entender e interagir com o conteúdo de uma página Web, independente de deficiências ou outros fatores. Embora exista uma grande quantidade de trabalhos realizados na área, pode-se ainda perceber que pessoas com alguns tipos específicos de deficiências encontram mais dificuldades ao navegar na Web, como no caso dos usuários cegos. Com intuito de minimizar os problemas enfrentados por esses usuários cegos ao navegar na Web, foi proposta nesta tese uma abordagem que consiste em extrair automaticamente o conhecimento de navegação implícito na apresentação visual de uma página Web e alterar o design dessa navegação de uma maneira otimizada a esses usuários. Com esse objetivo, primeiramente foram estudados os trabalhos relacionados aos principais problemas enfrentados pelos usuários cegos ao interagir com a Web, assim como os conjuntos de diretrizes de acessibilidade e usabilidade específicos para minimizar esses problemas, fundamentados em um mapeamento sistemático conduzido sobre o tema. Após a identificação dos problemas e diretrizes, foi desenvolvido um classificador baseado no método Naïve Bayes, considerando-se três características comumente encontradas nos padrões de design de menus de navegação, com intuito de classificar automaticamente os links contidos nesta página em diferentes classes referentes às estruturas de navegação. Após desenvolvido, o método foi testado e avaliado em sites governamentais por meio de uma análise estatística, apresentando um boa taxa de acerto em suas classificações. Com base nas dificuldades encontradas na primeira etapa de pesquisa, foi proposto um modelo de interface próprio aos usuários cegos que utilizam a Web com auxílio de um leitor de tela. Com base no classificador desenvolvido, foi proposta uma abordagem para automaticamente transformar os links de navegação classificados pelo método, em um padrão de navegação otimizado aos leitores de tela. Como prova de conceito, foi realizada uma extração semiautomática de conteúdo das páginas Web, com intuito de transformar esse conteúdo para o novo modelo de interface proposto. Nesse contexto, foi desenvolvido um protótipo de mecanismo de apoio, denominado NavAux. Esse protótipo foi avaliado através de um percurso cognitivo. Para isso, foram definidas algumas tarefas e a exploração da interface foi realizada com apoio do leitor de tela JAWS. Os resultados apresentaram indícios de que a abordagem proposta pode ser considerada uma alternativa viável para minimizar os problemas de acessibilidade enfrentados pelos usuários cegos ao navegar na Web. / Web Accessibility aims to enable that any individual may understand and interact with a Web page content, regardless of disabilities or other factors. Although there is a large number of research studies in this area, it can be noted individuals with some specific types of disabilities find it more difficulty browsing the Web, such as those who are blind. In order to minimize the problems faced by blind users when browsing the Web, the study reported in this thesis proposed an approach which consists in automatically extracting the navigation knowledge implicit in the visual presentation of a Web page and changing this navigation design to an optimized way to those users. For this purpose, the research started with a review of the papers related to the main problems faced by blind users when interacting to the Web, as well as the specific sets of accessibility and usability guidelines to minimize these problems, based on a systematic mapping study conducted on the topic. After identifying the problems and guidelines, the next step involved the development of a classifier based on the Naïve Bayes methods, considering three features commonly found in the design patterns of navigation menus, in order to automatically classify the links contained on each page into different classes relating to the navigation structures. After developed, the method was tested and assessed in governmental websites through an statistical analysis, showing a good success rate in its classifications. Based on the difficulties encountered during the first step of the research, the study proposed an interface model tailored to blind users who use the Web with the help of a screen reader. Based on the developed classifier, the study proposed an approach to automatically transform the browsing links classified by the method into an optimized navigation standard to screen readers. As a proof of concept, the following step involved a semi-automatic extraction of Web pages content, in order to transform this content to a new proposed interface model. In this context, was developed a prototype of the mechanism, named NavAux. This prototype was evaluated through a cognitive walkthrough. To this, were defined some tasks and the interface operation was performed with support of the JAWS screen reader. The results presented signs that the proposed approach can be considered a viable alternative to minimize the accessibility problems faced by blind users when browsing the Web.

This study investigates how mathematics teachers help Visually Impaired (VI) learners to construct mathematics knowledge. This investigation involved identifying the challenges encountered by high school mathematics teachers in teaching mathematics to VI learners, the approaches used and the assistive technology used to adapt and modify the curriculum to accommodate VI learners, and also aid the learners to access and construct mathematics knowledge. A constructivist approach was employed, allowing a discussion of how high school mathematics teachers redefine their position from that of a teacher to that of a facilitator who guides and stimulates VI learners to construct their own knowledge. A case study of two teachers from one of the special schools that offer mathematics up to FET phase was conducted. Data were collected from the teachers through classroom observation and semi-structured interviews. The study revealed that the teachers‘ experience resulted in a variety of challenges in teaching mathematics to VI learners. This finding further reveals that the approaches used to teach mathematics to VI learners are not different from those used in mainstream education. However, modification to the curriculum content is inevitable. Additionally, the selection of the appropriate approach and the effectiveness of using it to assist the VI learner depends on the skill, knowledge and the experience of the teacher in teaching mathematics to VI learners. The study also revealed that assistive technology is essential for enlarging the text to the correct font of the learner and translating print text to braille to help blind learners complete their tasks. For example, while a transformer HD is used to enlarge text, the scientific notebook, Math Type and Duxbury programs are used to generate braille text. Additionally, the Tactile View and View Plus programs are used to produce embossed sketches, while Perkins braillers and talking calculators provide further independence. Due to the limited number of participants in the study and the focus on a single case, the dissertation does not aim to generalise the results to all special needs schools in South Africa. However, the findings will be of great benefit to those teachers teaching mathematics in special needs schools with VI learners to take a step forward in introducing mathematics at FET phase level. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Science, Mathematics and Technology Education / MEd / Unrestricted

No description available.

Orientation in big administration buildings can be very difficult for visually impaired people. Although most of the buildings are equipped with elevators, the buttons of which are designated with Braille characters and acoustic signals, it might be very difficult for the visually impaired to actually find the particular office. Even if there were descriptions in Braille at each office door, it would prove very complicating for the visually impaired individual to localize the descriptions in the first place, especially in case of a large number of offices in the building. That may also concern other important places, such as toilets, inside a building. In this thesis, I am going to present a design proposal of a communication system which uses transceivers placed at significant points in a building and receivers placed at the end of the white cane for orientation inside a building.