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SME interview on user needs and preferences for vision impaired users (May 9, 2012)

SME interview on user needs and preferences for vision impaired users (May 9, 2012)

May 11, 2012

General data about the SME and clients

  • Occupational therapist for Vision Technology Services at OCAD U

  • Sees clients on a regular basis (4/week)

  • Client demographic:

    • More adults than children, with most adults being 50+

    • Roughly equal split gender-wise

    • Half are on government ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program)

    • Occupationally:

      • Some have small part-time jobs (e.g., at a store)

      • Those who do not receive ODSP support are working if within working age, mostly in a professional setting (office work, teachers, etc.) that depends on computers

    • Technical ability:

      • Most clients depend on the use of the computer

      • Client computer savvy depends largely on age

      • Older clients less likely to be computer savvy, though some are

      • Most clients are familiar with basic operation of email, internet browsing, basic word processing, etc.

      • Some clients have more involved usage of the computer (finance, etc.), many use it for social networking (Facebook, etc.)

      • Most clients have used a computer in the past, though some have almost no experience

Client challenges

  • Most clients have low-vision or blindness

  • Non-vision issues

    • Mainly brain-related (e.g., CP, stroke, autism, developmental delay, Down syndrome, brain injury)

    • Some with wrist injury, carpel tunnel

  • Vision disabilities include:

    • Low-vision

    • Photo sensitivity to glare or bright lights

      • Users with this issue often prefer black backgrounds

    • Difficulty tracking (identification + tracking)

    • Fatigue (esp. eye fatigue)

    • Field cuts

      • Central vision only

      • Peripheral vision only

    • Blind spots

    • Floaters

    • Double vision (often caused by one eye pointing in a different direction than the other)

      • Considerations: if double vision is vertical, we can crop the line above and below to enable focus on the line; if double vision in horizontal, can increase letter/word spacing

    • Colour blindness

Range of preferences

  • Ability to change colour schemes (SME isn't sure if clients use this on the web, but can imagine that it would be)

    • Contrast (mainly high)

    • Black background, if photo-sensitive

  • Bold letters

  • Clear landmarks on the page to help navigation when zoomed

  • Screen reader accessibility: meaningful links, structure, etc.

  • Most clients prefer sans serif fonts for reading on the computer

  • Larger text size

  • Spacing between lines

    • Also spacing between letters and words, but this is less often

Things that would be nice to have

  • Real-time OCRing of images in websites

  • More portable options for ATs (equipment that looks less like adaptive technologies, and are lighter and easier to carry)

  • Better OCR

  • Identification of cursor, cursor targeting

  • Some solution for information overload

    • For some clients, the amount of information that's presented dramatically slows the processing of what they see

    • They need a solution for helping to identify what they're looking for within the deluge of information (recognize items in a slew)

    • Like a list of things, or a view of the breadth with help directing to the appropriate places

    • Existing solution: Dolphin Guide (menu-driven simplification system)

  • Speech synthesis still sounds mechanical and not human

  • Often partial vision clients are visual learners, and the auditory alternatives aren't good enough