HCC: Small: MobileAccessibility: Bridge to the World for Blind, Low-Vision, and Deaf-Blind People

HCC：小型：移动辅助功能：盲人、低视力和聋哑人通向世界的桥梁

• 批准号: 1116051
• 负责人: Richard Ladner
• 金额: $ 50万
• 依托单位: University of Washington
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-08-01 至 2015-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1116051&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: HCC; Small; MobileAccessibility; Bridge; World

More than 160 million blind, low-vision, and deaf-blind people worldwide have not realized the full potential of the mobile revolution. People in these groups often use special-purpose portable devices to solve specific accessibility problems, such as obtaining product information from bar codes, finding location information via GPS, and accessing printed text using optical character recognition (OCR). Unfortunately, devices targeted at these groups are specialized for one or few functions, usually not networked, and expensive. Devices also target one disability, thereby preventing a deaf-blind person from, for instance, using a device designed for a low-vision person. Blind, low-vision, and deaf-blind people who can afford it must carry multiple devices with varying interfaces. This is despite the fact that many mainstream mobile devices already have the necessary sensors, such as a camera, microphone, GPS locator, accelerometer, and compass, to provide all of these functions on one device. MobileAccessibility is the PI's approach to providing useful mobile accessible functionality to blind, low-vision, and deaf-blind users. This approach leverages a smart phone's sensors, multi-modal output, and access to remote services to reduce the cost of existing accessibility solutions and enable completely new ones to be created. Some key user interaction problems for these groups of users that will be addressed in this project include: (i) how can a blind, low-vision, or deaf-blind person effectively use the camera on a smart phone to achieve an accessibility goal, (ii) how can enlarged presentations be effectively navigated by a low-vision person on the small screen of a smart phone, (iii) how can vibration be effectively used to convey information to a blind or deaf-blind person, (iv) how can valuable network services be best utilized by these communities, (v) how can the knowledge of one person about their environment be effectively captured, stored, and used among these communities. The user-centered design of these applications will involve blind, low-vision, and deaf-blind people throughout their development. Prototype applications to provide context to the research questions will be built for all three groups. Input will use speech recognition, the touch screen, and the keyboard. Output will be audio for blind users, enlargement for low-vision users, and vibration and tethering to Braille devices for deaf-blind and blind users. The resulting interfaces will be evaluated both in the lab and in the field. There will a focus on identifying common interaction techniques that can be employed by multiple applications.Broader Impacts: This research represents a new paradigm in mobile assistive technologies where a single programmable device can serve a multitude of accessibility needs. Rather than using separate devices for different needs, accessibility solutions can be downloaded to a single device. The research challenge is to design, build, and evaluate novel accessibility solutions in this new paradigm. A mobile phone that can accomplish multiple accessibility tasks has the potential to provide the target communities with more independence than they have currently. Furthermore, the MobileAccessibility solution has the potential to be inexpensive and more sustainable than current accessibility solutions. Qualified students with disabilities will be recruited as researchers, giving them a chance to participate in work directly affecting them. New project-oriented curricula based on MobileAccessibility will be created.

全球超过1.6亿盲人、低视力和聋盲人还没有充分发挥移动革命的潜力。这些群体中的人经常使用特殊用途的便携式设备来解决特定的可访问性问题，例如从条形码获取产品信息，通过GPS查找位置信息，以及使用光学字符识别(OCR)访问打印文本。不幸的是，针对这些群体的设备专门用于一种或几种功能，通常不联网，而且价格昂贵。设备还针对一种残疾，从而防止聋盲人使用例如为低视力者设计的设备。负担得起的盲人、低视力和聋盲人士必须携带多种接口各异的设备。尽管许多主流移动设备已经拥有必要的传感器，如摄像头、麦克风、GPS定位器、加速度计和指南针，但在一台设备上提供所有这些功能。移动辅助功能是PI为盲人、低视力和聋盲用户提供有用的移动辅助功能的方法。这种方法利用智能手机的传感器、多模式输出和对远程服务的访问来降低现有辅助功能解决方案的成本，并能够创建全新的辅助功能解决方案。本项目将解决这些用户组的一些关键用户交互问题，包括：(I)盲人、低视力或聋盲人如何有效地使用智能手机上的摄像头来实现无障碍目标，(Ii)低视力者如何在智能手机的小屏幕上有效地导航放大的演示文稿，(Iii)如何有效地利用振动向盲人或聋盲人传递信息，(Iv)这些社区如何最好地利用有价值的网络服务，(V)如何在这些社区中有效地获取、存储和使用一个人关于其环境的知识。这些应用程序的以用户为中心的设计将涉及盲人、低视力和聋盲人的整个发展过程。将为所有三组人建立为研究问题提供背景的原型应用程序。输入将使用语音识别、触摸屏和键盘。输出将是盲人用户的音频，低视力用户的放大，以及聋盲和盲人用户的振动和盲文设备。生成的接口将在实验室和现场进行评估。这项研究代表了移动辅助技术中的一种新范式，在移动辅助技术中，单个可编程设备可以满足多种辅助功能需求。可以将辅助功能解决方案下载到单个设备，而不是使用不同的设备来满足不同的需求。研究的挑战是在这种新的范例中设计、构建和评估新的可访问性解决方案。一部可以完成多个辅助功能任务的移动电话有可能为目标社区提供比目前更多的独立性。此外，MobileAccesability解决方案可能比目前的无障碍解决方案更便宜、更可持续。合格的残疾学生将被招募为研究人员，让他们有机会参与直接影响他们的工作。将创建基于MobileAccesability的新的面向项目的课程。