Accessible Multimodal Tool Support for Brainstorming Meetings

In recent years, assistive technology and digital accessibility for blind and visually impaired people (BVIP) has been significantly improved. Yet, group discussions, especially in a business context, are still challenging as non-verbal communication (NVC) is often depicted on digital whiteboards, including deictic gestures paired with visual artifacts. However, as NVC heavily relies on the visual perception, whichrepresents a large amount of detail, an adaptive approach is required that identifies the most relevant information for BVIP. Additionally, visual artifacts usually rely on spatial properties such as position, orientation, and dimensions to convey essential information such as hierarchy, cohesion, and importance that is often not accessible to the BVIP. In this paper, we investigate the requirements of BVIP during brainstorming sessions and, based on our findings, provide an accessible multimodal tool that uses non-verbal and spatial cues as an additional layer of information. Further, we contribute by presenting a set of input and output modalities that encode and decode information with respect to the individual demands of BVIP and the requirements of different use cases.

Enabling Real-Time 3D Display of Lifelike Fingerspelling in a Web App

Fingerspelling receptive skills remain among the most difficult aspects of sign language for hearing people to learn due to the lack of access to practice tools that reproduce the natural motion of human signing. This problem has been exacerbated in recent years by the move from desktop to mobile technologies which has rendered prior software platforms less accessible to general users. This paper explores a web-enabled 3D rendering architecture that enables real-time fingerspelling on a human avatar that can address these issues. In addition it is capable of producing more realistic motion than prior efforts that were video-based and provides greater interactivity and customization that will support further enhancements to self-practice tools for fingerspelling reception.

Designing Nostalgic Tangible User Interface Application for Elderly People

Our elderly population faces challenges in accepting and using new digital technology, and tangible user interface (TUI) can contribute as a more intuitive user interface in addressing these challenges. Studies have shown that nostalgic memories trigger positive emotions, which can provide better experiences for elderly people in learning and using new technology. However, the use of nostalgia in TUI for elderly people has been little and therefore the understanding on how nostalgia can contribute in TUI promoting technology acceptance among elderly people is limited. In order to address this knowledge gap, in this study we have created a nostalgic TUI application for elderly people through three iterations of design, development and evaluation. The results show that by adopting the element of nostalgia into the TUI application, elderly people could learn to use new technology in a more intuitive way. They could relate the new technology to their old positive memories. However, they had expectations that the TUI application would work exactly like the old fashioned way. Through the research process, we gathered and reflected on the lessons learned, which can serve as guidelines for using the concept of nostalgia in designing TUI application for elderly people’s technology acceptance.