Today, the internet connects 66.2% of the world’s population online. Accessibility to digital information is crucial for social inclusion and equal opportunities. In this respect, it is considered to be a fundamental human right. However, most websites contain accessibility errors, creating a significant barrier for users with impairments. Accessib...
Imagine going to a bar to meet your friends. When you arrive you try to spot them in a room filled with people, but your view is blurred which disables you from recognizing your friends. How would this make you feel? People that are blind or have low vision (PBLV) are all around us and can be found in any context of life. Just like sighted people, ...
Maps are indispensable for helping people learn about unfamiliar environments and plan trips. While tactile (2D) and 3D maps offer non-visual map access to people who are blind or visually impaired (BVI), this access is greatly enhanced by adding interactivity to the maps: when the user points at a feature of interest on the map, the name and other...
This study evaluated the impact the Tactile Maps Automated Production (TMAP) system has had on its blind and visually impaired (BVI) and Orientation and Mobility (O&M) users and obtained suggestions for improvement. A semi-structured interview was performed with six BVI and seven O&M TMAP users who had printed or ordered two or more TMAPs in the la...
Published in Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction
Many people with low vision rely on screen-magnifier assistive technology to interact with productivity applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation software. Despite the importance of these applications, little is known about their usability with respect to low-vision screen-magnifier users. To fill this knowledge gap, we c...
Indoor navigation is a major challenge for people with visual impairments, who often lack access to visual cues such as informational signs, landmarks and structural features that people with normal vision rely on for wayfinding. We describe a new approach to recognizing and analyzing informational signs, such as Exit and restroom signs, in a build...
Augmented reality (AR) has great potential for blind users because it enables a range of applications that provide audio information about specific locations or directions in the user's environment. For instance, the CamIO ("Camera Input-Output") AR app makes physical objects (such as documents, maps, devices and 3D models) accessible to blind and ...
Indoor navigation is a major challenge for people with visual impairments, who often lack access to visual cues such as informational signs, landmarks and structural features that people with normal vision rely on for wayfinding. Building on our recent work on a computer vision-based localization approach that runs in real time on a smartphone, we ...
We describe a new approach to audio labeling of 3D objects such as appliances, 3D models and maps that enables a visually impaired person to audio label objects. Our approach to audio labeling is called CamIO, a smartphone app that issues audio labels when the user points to a hotspot (a location of interest on an object) with a handheld stylus vie...
Published in Ophthalmic epidemiology
To use electronic health record (EHR) data to estimate the prevalence and characteristics of low-vision (LV) patients. EHR data were obtained for all patients at the nine clinical locations of the Wilmer Eye Institute in 2014. LV status at each visit was defined as visual acuity (VA) worse than 20/40 in the better-seeing eye. Prevalence and inciden...
