Empowering People with Vision Impairments through Accessible Wearable Computing

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In Canada, there are 1.5 million people who identify as having a visual impairment. People with visual impairments (PVI) often use assistive technologies to gain independence, yet they still face several barriers that exclude them from fully participating in society. This proposal focuses on increasing human-computer interaction accessibility for the PVI community, through the design of accessible wearable computing, which can help create a more inclusive society in collaboration with policymakers. My research program focuses on three short-term goals. First, I aim to improve the accessibility of online tools with PVI. Second, I will facilitate remote co-design of wearable prototypes with PVI through a modular wearable toolkit. I will explore fabrication techniques to develop this toolkit, and specifically investigate a collaborative component where two PVI could remotely collaborate on the same project using shape-changing technologies. Finally, my work will empower PVI for independence in playful activities through wearable prototypes, to support PVI who are interested in independently playing board and card games and give the ability for PVI to practise musical instruments on their own. My research lies at the intersection of human computer interaction, accessibility, and wearable computing. I recognize the expertise of people with disability by using co-design methodologies where researchers and designers to work alongside people with lived experiences. By 2026, people predict that the wearable technology industry will be worth more than $260 billion, though many people with disabilities are being left behind. The project proves novel embodied, wearable, and tangible user interfaces for people with disabilities and builds strategies to enable the PVI community to be part of the design process. The work encourages companies to recruit PVI to their design teams like designers, developers, and other roles in their businesses. It is critical when designing for people with disabilities to make sure their opinions and experiences are considered in the design. The research program will also lay the groundwork for policy innovation for accessible wearables and e-textiles as the current accessibility policy in Canada often focuses on digital assets. Finally, the work will provide evidence-based design specifications for wearables and e-textiles that can be applied in various contexts and evaluation criteria for their designs which can assist in evaluating future work.