Excellence in Research: Human Factors Approach to Facilitate Ambient Assisted Living Accessible and Usable to People with Visual Impairments: Loneliness Self-Monitoring System

卓越研究奖为传统黑人学院和大学的教师提供支持，以加强他们的研究能力。该奖项授予北卡罗来纳农业技术州立大学在许多科学和社会领域具有潜在的更广泛的影响。该项目将采用以用户为中心的设计方法进行研究，分析视障人士在家中独特的步态特征，并考虑使用辅助设备或服务犬。这项步态分析和人为因素研究将有助于了解这些视障个体的主观因素、情绪状态和孤独感。最后，研究成果将支持自我监测，以便最终用户可以通过使用可访问格式（例如语音用户界面）了解孤独感检测和评估结果。这项研究使视障人士受益，为学生提供教育机会，并在使用以人为本的设计研究方面推进知识，以解决残疾人的独特需求。该项目是一项人体工程学/人为因素研究，利用健康信息学和数据分析，专注于推进知识、技术和人为因素工程原理，以准确评估自然环境（即家庭）中的人类行为数据。重点是专门为纳入残疾人（即视力障碍）而设计的分析模块。项目目标包括在自然环境中进行以用户为中心的上下文查询，使用迭代的以用户为中心的设计方法为系统开发数据收集、分析和报告模块，最后，在个人的自然环境中评估所提议系统的有效性、可靠性和可用性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Excellence in Research awards provide support for faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities to strengthen their research capacity. The award to North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University has potential broader impact in a number of scientific and societal areas. The project will utilize a user-centered design methodology to conduct research that analyzes the unique gait characteristics of visually impaired individuals in the home, with consideration for the use of assistive devices or service dogs. This gait analysis and human factors research will facilitate an understanding of subjective factors, emotional status and aloneness for these visually impaired individuals. Finally, the research outcomes will support self monitoring such that the end users can be informed about the loneliness detection and assessment results through the use of accessible formats (e.g., voice user interfaces). This research benefits the visually impaired, supports educational opportunities for students and advances knowledge in the use of human centered design research to address unique needs of those individuals with disabilities. The project is an ergonomics/human factors study that utilizes health informatics and data analytics to focus on advancing knowledge, technology, and human factors engineering principles to accurately assess human behavioral data in a natural environment (i.e. the home). The focus is on analytical modules specifically designed for the inclusion of persons with disabilities (i.e. visual impairments). The project objectives include conducting a user-centered contextual inquiry in a natural environment, developing the data collection, analysis, and report modules for the system using an iterative user-centered design approach, and finally, assessing the validity, reliability, and usability of the proposed system in an individual's natural environment.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.