Final poster/paper

I did not succeed in doing all that I wanted to, but I feel as though I learned a lot while working on this project. hcc 741 poster final walters acm final

Summary of the DIY accessibility readings

This reading went into how accessibility technology can be made useful for individuals in a inexpensive and easy manner. They first list previous examples of this, such as the Head-painting device and Jeary’s website (workshopsolutions.com), not only to illustrate individualized solutions, but also how communities can form to provide solutions and help. Some of the designs examined include cheap wooden wheelchairs for children, cupholders for wheelchairs, and an methods section for obtaining how to properly understand how each individual may want to customize their Assistive Technology. The paper concluded by talking about current online communities and other resources that exist for not only creating designs, but also tools for prototyping. These range from things such as low-cost 3D printers to high-tech things such as the Open Prosthesis project. The paper concludes by talking about how this DIY AT approach can help improve the adoption process of AT.  Roger’s 5 stages of adoption are addressed as follows: Knowledge (or basic awareness) of the technology, Persuasion to adopt it , Making the Decision to adopt the technology, Implementation of the technology, and confirmation that the technology is appropriate.  This is where the concept of community plays a large role in the process. These allow the user to have support and experience when going through all of these stages.

While personalizing technology is of great interest to me, the idea of do-it-yourself communities which can create parts outside of retailers is one which I am greatly interested. While certain communities do exist (such as Etsy and Pinterest) for individual makers to sell their goods, currently there are very little options for creating things such as spare parts. As a result, parts for older technology are either extremely expensive or otherwise nonexistent.

When we visited the MDTAP, I often wondered what would happen to some of the devices if a part broke. While many of the devices were inexpensive, at the same time there did not seem to be any way of repairing them if something happened. Moreover, these retail devices might not be able to cater to all of the user’s specific needs (and only maintain a purely functional use). At the same time, however, the user may not have the technical acumen to implement exactly what they want. Having a community which can not only offer parts and services but also advice on what exactly they are looking for. By doing so, older (and somewhat cheaper) technology can not only be maintained, but customized to provide exactly what the users want.

Summary of Aging readings

In these readings the author talked about what exactly happens when a person begins to age. While it is true there is actual decline in physical and mental function, there may be overblown fears that are on the decline, such as the fear of being institutionalized. Research has shown that physiological loss can be prevented through the use of exercises and other activities. While early models of the human body have been compared to a machine, with parts breaking down being seen as irreplaceable and unavoidable. However, while certain maintenance may not necessarily lengthen the life of all parts, at the same time it is necessary to keep the machine running smoothly. More recent models have begun to look at more individualized example, but there are some problems when examining people in specific. It is still unknown how much environment plays a role when compared with genetics, but that is not all. The way society is structured is that people over sixty are often marginalized and have expected lower physical and mental expectations.  After this, the readings go to talk about how the body changes as we age, starting from the physical and cardiovascular, then the muscular structure, all the way down to the skin.

When I was reading over this, I found that there were a number of things that I had not thought about when I was designing a study for older populations. The purpose of this was to develop morning exercises that the older population could use in bed in order to reduce the risk of injuries from falls. I consulted with several experts in aikido on the ergonomics of falling and how to mitigate it. I ran it through simulations in SPSS based on live data gathered, but my proposed methodology did not work when it actually came to testing it with live participants. The participants either complained about exhaustion or else did not like the routine. I did not take into consideration the physical abilities of each individual participant, and assumed that everyone would have the ability to perform these exercises in their beds (which was where it was designed to be deployed). However, one of the complaints in specific stood out in particular, and now I understand what he meant by it. One of the people who was able to complete the routine was an older gentlemen who was in fairly good shape. He was able to go to the gym once or twice a week, so I thought he would have no problem completing the routine. However, he told me that his back was unused to the amount of strain that it was experiencing, and that it was unlikely that many people could use this technique if it relied heavily on rotation of certain back muscles.

Hcc 741 poster final

This is my final poster. hcc 741 poster v3

Weekly project update

The holidays have thrown everything out of whack, but I am still going to meet up with my mentor this week to finalize our plans for the Sensory Morning project on the 14th.

Weekly project update

I have set another date to talk with my mentor on December 1st, and am planning to visit the Walters tomorrow on 11/19 to gather additional data. Coding is going well now that I have re-focused what exactly I plan to do.

Summary of 11/13 reading

This week’s readings were all about the WCAG guidelines that should be implemented in order to make web content more accessible to those with disabilities. In particular, the guidelines fall into four main categories: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.  The WCAG offers several layers of guidelines on how things are arranged.   At the top are the four principles of accessibility: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Under these principles are 12 guidelines which are the basic goals are outlined on how to provide the framework to achieve them. Under each guideline, criteria for success are provided as a metric to be used for conformance testing used in design specification, regulation, and contractual agreements. Three levels of conformance are designed by the WCAG, ranging from A (lowest) to AAA (highest). These are used to designate companies who have achieved a certain level of the initial success criterion laid out. Lastly, a wide variety of techniques that apply in two categories: one which are sufficient for meeting success criteria, and advisory techniques that are used to go beyond what is required. The guidelines then go into detail on what specifically is necessary under the four categories, which include things such as providing alternatives for time-based media and alternative text for visual-based media.

I had a hard time coming up with what I should say about this journal entry. This is not the first time that I have seen these guidelines, but at the same time this is the first time I looked at them in greater detail.  I had first encountered these guidelines when looking up usability guidelines in order to create an automatic question-based categorization/production method for alternative text. I specifically had to look at Guideline 1.1 to understand what techniques had been developed in order to incorporate them within the automatic system. When I re-read these guidelines, I found myself thinking back to how I incorporated those into the project. Looking at just one guideline, there were a number of categories of techniques, such as for PDFs, HTML documents, and ARIA. Some of these were pertinent to the work I did in the past, one thing that I wondered when I looked over all of these was the idea of visibility. Not the visibility in terms of the user experience goal, but rather finding relevant information. While it is somewhat easy to find the necessary methods and techniques for a specific sort of task right now, without the implementation of keywords or other categorical structures, it may be a little harder to spot the necessary techniques if more are implemented.

weekly project update

I am feeling a lot better about the project now that I have refocused my efforts and figured out exactly what the scope of my project is. While I am still programming things, at the same time I feel like I am not as far behind as I previously was.

Summary of 11/ 6 readings

The paper talked about some of the problems and browsing strategies that the visually impaired use when accessing websites. The readings first start off by talking about the technology that most of the visually impaired use, screen readers. These devices are used to vocalize much of the content on that appears on websites, but they run into a number of problems. While guidelines have been created by the W3C to make Rich Internet Applications (RIA) accessible through manual and automatic verification, there are still issues when it comes to accessing content. Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA), the method developed for this, still runs into problems when trying to access relevant dynamic content.

The readings then go into detail about how the visually impaired access content. In particular, they talk about browsing strategies, technology used, and the interfaces of screen readers.  Some ways that the visually impaired improve their screen reading experience include things such as increasing the speech rate, customization of preferences, and inferring roles of controls. It also talked about some of the problems that websites with dynamic content cause, such as form filling and automatic refreshing. Lastly, the readings talk about specific strategies that are used on dynamic websites.

One of the things that I realized when looking over this was how much of the web was how much of it had shifted to dynamic content.  After listening to Ali talk on Thursday, I checked out how hard it would be to navigate some of my favorite websites without a mouse. I found that some of the only strategies available (arrow keys and the tab button) to be nearly impossible to recognize in certain spots. The cursor was often barely visible at times, and often there were hidden parts of the website that I hadn’t even realized. Even worse, the tab key would often drastically shift ‘meaning’ depending on what area was selected. In a text box like this one, it was only used for indentation. But outside of this, sometimes it could shift the entire site from the top to the bottom.

In addition, I checked out some dynamic sites like the ones shown in the readings. I found that there were a number of them were somewhat accessible, but still gave a number of issues when I tried to access content. From what I attempted, I understand why the implementation of shortcuts and other related strategies are necessary.

Midterm poster/paper

Enclosed are my mid-term poster/paper. Will also bring these to class. walters acm midterm v3 hcc 741 poster v2