1,720,988 research outputs found
Understanding the Career Mobility of Blind and Low Vision Software Professionals
Get PDFContext: Scholars in the software engineering (SE) research community have
investigated career advancement in the software industry. Research topics have
included how individual and external factors can impact career mobility of
software professionals, and how gender affects career advancement. However, the
community has yet to look at career mobility from the lens of accessibility.
Specifically, there is a pressing need to illuminate the factors that hinder
the career mobility of blind and low vision software professionals (BLVSPs).
Objective: This study aims to understand aspects of the workplace that impact
career mobility for BLVSPs. Methods: We interviewed 26 BLVSPs with different
roles, years of experience, and industry sectors. Thematic analysis was used to
identify common factors related to career mobility. Results: We found four
factors that impacted the career mobility of BLVSPs: (1) technical challenges,
(2) colleagues' perceptions of BLVSPs, (3) BLVSPs' own perceptions on
managerial progression, and (4) BLVSPs' investment in accessibility at the
workplace. Conclusion: We suggest implications for tool designers,
organizations, and researchers towards fostering more accessible workplaces to
support the career mobility of BLVSPs.Comment: 12 pages, 1 table, conference paper, 2024 ACM / IEEE 17th
International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software
Engineerin
Creative Problem-Solving: A Study With Blind and Low Vision Software Professionals
No full textBackground: Software engineering requires both technical skills and creative problem-solving. Blind and low-vision software professionals (BLVSPs) encounter numerous workplace challenges, including inaccessible tools and collaboration hurdles with sighted colleagues. Objective: This study explores the innovative strategies employed by BLVSPs to overcome these accessibility barriers, focusing on their custom solutions and the importance of supportive communities. Methodology: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 BLVSPs and used refexive thematic analysis to identify key themes. Results: Findings reveal that BLVSPs are motivated to develop creative and adaptive solutions, highlighting the vital role of collaborative communities in fostering shared problem-solving. Conclusion: For BLVSPs, creative problem-solving is essential for navigating inaccessible work environments, in contrast to sighted peers, who pursue optimization. This study enhances understanding of how BLVSPs navigate accessibility challenges through innovation
Recommended from our members
Are Digital Children's Books Accessible to Blind Parents with Sighted Children?
Get PDFAssistive technologies offer numerous benefits for people with visual impairments (PWVI) when reading books in digital formats. Over the past decade, researchers have focused on exploring and enhancing the accessibility of digital book formats for PWVIs; yet, a recent study revealed that PWVI who are parents do not use digital books to read with their children. Scientists do not yet know why this is the case; are digital children’s books inaccessible, or do they fail to meet the needs of co-reading? This thesis presents (1) a content analysis of the accessibility of 14 digital children's books and (2) an interview study with five blind parents about their preferred co-reading technologies with their sighted children. This study reveals that the digital books sampled provided poor accessibility; most notably, the study underscored the absence of any form of image accessibility. Moreover, this research identified that blind parents do not desire to use digital books when reading with their children because, most often, they read before bedtime, and they want to avoid using screens. The key contribution of this work is to identify the factors of blind parents not using digital books with their children and insights into the design of assistive technologies for co-reading, emphasizing a preference for physical formats of children’s books
Recommended from our members
The Who and How of Image Accessibility in Practice: Studies of Alt Text Production Processes and Roles in Differing Contexts
Get PDFAlt text, short for alternative text, is text associated with a digital image that describes its visual content for screen reader users. The lack of alt text on many major websites, particularly those with high levels of user generated content, has been an ongoing area of study within the accessible computing space. However, most studies on alt text have surveyed current coverage, defined appropriate alt text, or introduced an intervention to deliver more or better alt text to users. This dissertation instead takes the view that understanding existing practices by which alt text is made can provide a better basis from which to develop our understandings and solutions. Therefore, I present three studies of alt text creation in practice, with a focus on inclusive and accessible imagery. First, I present a qualitative interview study in which I co-designed inclusive alt text with users with disabilities. This study led to a description of the different roles and layers of interpretation at play in the creation and reception of imagery and alt text. Second, I describe a set of interviews with artists and accessibility practitioners at Google investigating how imagery and alt text is created in a technology company. This study provided the first known models of alt text creation processes and described the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches. And lastly, I document a digital ethnography of an online accessibility community that collaboratively supports image accessibility on social media through volunteer-based crowdsourcing. This ethnography found that community-based accessibility is dedicated to more than just alt text, but to the creation of broadly applicable accessibility practices and a shift in social media platform culture. From these studies I develop recommendations for future accessibility research, implications for future social media design, and advice for future practice of accessibility by professionals and activists
Recommended from our members
How Parents with Blindness or Low Vision Leverage Technology to Care for Their Children
Get PDFThis research paper investigates the role of technology in the caregiving experiences of Blind or Low Vision (BLV) parents for their child(ren). Initially, the study aimed to explore the assumed use of assistive technologies (ATs) through analysis of YouTube videos, expecting to find a significant reliance on these technologies in BLV parenting. However, the findings reveal a nuanced perspective. Technology is found to play a supplementary rather than central role in BLV parenting. BLV parents exhibit active adaptation and innovation in their caregiving approaches, focusing on developing personalized systems and solutions. Predominantly mainstream technology is creatively repurposed to cater to their specific needs, a practice akin to life hacking. The research emphasizes that BLV parents prioritize their child(ren)'s health, safety, and well-being, fostering a nourishing environment through their resourceful caregiving strategies
Recommended from our members
How Organizational Structures Produce Inaccessible Technology at a Hybrid Company
Get PDFFor people with disabilities, substantial barriers exist to accessing technologies ranging from mainstream web browsers and public websites to individual pieces of media content. Despite decades of research investigating the magnitude and causes of this problem, software often fails to meet basic accessibility benchmarks and requires expensive retrofitting. Prior research has largely fallen into three categories: (1) evaluating the quality of current accessibility guidelines, (2) assessing the compliance of technology products with accessibility guidelines and standards, and (3) surveying the individual perspectives of technology development professionals. Yet, few if any studies have sought to understand more systemic causes of inaccessible technology development in industry. This thesis presents a qualitative interview study of the organizational aspects of (in)accessible technology development from the perspective of 10 technology professionals situated in different roles at a mid-sized technology company. Through our discussions of workplace policies, individuals’ familiarity with accessibility, implementation of accessibility before and after design, and challenges with this implementation, I identified organizational factors that would undermine even the best guidelines or efforts of accessibility-minded individuals. Specifically, I found a lack of formalized accessibility roles, lack of software accessibility accountability, as well as a lack of infrastructure for integrating disabled users into the design process. My work suggests that, until we approach accessibility at an organizational level, we may continue to see retrofit accessibility solutions that leave people with disabilities behind
Recommended from our members
Advancing Critical and Socially-Oriented Approaches to Domestic Accessible Computing Research
Get PDFA growing body of Accessible Computing (AC) research addressing the design of computing systems for disabled users suggests that social factors, like stigma and the presence of nondisabled others, impact the success of AC systems. To date, the vast majority of research aimed at understanding how social factors influence AC system design and use has focused on public and work-oriented contexts—neglecting, in particular, domestic spaces. But, examining the ways social factors impact the design and use of AC systems for domestic contexts may be particularly prescient; Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research which does not examine disability consistently demonstrates that social aspects of domesticity impact the design and successful adoption of digital technologies in home environments. But, it remains unclear whether the social factors impacting the design of domestic AC systems are similar to, differ from, or extend beyond those identified in HCI studies of nondisabled people. Additionally, it remains unclear why this gap in knowledge exists, given the increasing acceptance of social approaches to AC and consistent demonstration of the need to understand social factors indomestic HCI.Toward advancing social approaches to domestic AC research, this dissertation makes three contributions, through three studies. Firstly, I empirically examine blind adults’ perspectives on social considerations of domesticity relevant to AC design research, in their roles as parents, through a content analysis of a social media group for blind parents and, in their roles as partners, through a paired-interview study of blind and sighted intimate partners. Secondly, I investigate AC design researchers’ perspectives on social considerations of domesticity relevant to AC design research, to explore whether patterns of research praxis contribute to a lack of scholarly attention in this domain, through a critical discourse analysis of recent domestic AC literature. Thirdly, and finally, through synthesizing these studies, I compare blind adults’ perspectives and AC design researchers’ perspectives on social considerations of domesticity relevant to AC design research, to understand whether and how AC design researchers may need to adjust their approaches to better attend to the lived experiences and perspectives of disabled users, like blind adults. I found that blind adults’ perspectives and AC design researchers’ perspectives on social considerations of domesticity relevant to AC design research differ in three primary areas: 1) Conceptions of disabled people’s resource contributions to the household, 2) directionality and reciprocity of care in familial relationships between disabled and nondisabled people, and 3) desirability of disabled people’s individual agency and autonomy in domestic spaces. In response to these tensions, I outline a framework of AC design research principles based on Disability Rights advocacy intended to align the perspectives of AC researchers and those of the anticipated disabled users of their domestic technologies
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
- …
