This paper presents two experiments in using "masks" to direct users' attention within a graphical user interface. Bleaching, darkening, blurring, and a solid-color pattern overlay (screening) are used to de-emphasize background material, causing the target to visually "pop-out" at the user. The tradeoff between effectively directing the user's attention and ensuring the readability of the background material is explored. Experimental results indicate that there is a wide range of darkening and screening levels that can create a pop-out effect without degrading the readability of the masked area.
A review of 35 peer reviewed articles dated from 2016 to February, 2021 was conducted to identify and describe the types of wayfinding devices that people who are blind, visually impaired or deafblind use while navigating indoors and/or outdoors in dynamic travel contexts. Within this investigation, we discovered some characteristics of participants with visual impairments, routes traveled, and real-world environments that have been included in recent wayfinding research as well as information regarding the institutions, agencies, and funding sources that enable these investigations. Results showed that 33 out of the 35 studies which met inclusionary criteria integrated the use of smart device technology. Many of these devices were supplemented by bluetooth low-energy beacons, and other sensors with more recent studies integrating LIDAR scanning. Identified studies included scant information about participant’s visual acuities or etiologies with a few exceptions, which limits the usability of the findings for this highly heterogeneous population. Themes derived from this study are categorized around the individual traveler’s needs; the wayfinding technologies identified and their perceived efficacy; the contexts and routes for wayfinding tasks; and the institutional support offered for sustaining wayfinding research.
are Senior Programme Officers at BECTAThe criteria presented here were originally developed to enable evaluation of cancer web sites for the general public. Subsequently, the criteria were developed and refined in a collaboration between the University of Birmingham and the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency. These were used to support focus groups evaluating the prototype Virtual Teacher's Centre on the National Grid for Learning.The question of how to evaluate Web sites is being vigorously debated in medical publications and needs greater debate in educational forums. Many such discussions (Impicciatore et al., 1997) tend to deal with evaluation of content. Guidelines have been developed which address issues of provenance, reliability, coverage and attribution, and have been derived by adapting and applying guidelines for academic publications. The Vancouver group guidelines adopted by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA, 1997) is one such example. The British Healthcare Internet Association has developed a similar set of standards (BHIA, 1996).At the same time criteria for evaluation of screen design, structure and functionality of Web texts have been developed by teams with a background in evaluation of multimedia (for example, Alexander and Tatekinds of criteria must be considered alongside those associated with content. McLuhan's phrase, "The medium is the massage", is in fact more apposite in its original form (McLuhan, 1968) than in the often misquoted version. However, whether dealing with content, design or both, existing criteria still do not sufficiently address fitness of form for purpose and audience and few address usage or evaluation.Our purpose is to develop a tool that can be used both by developers and users. Such a tool needs to be tested and the principles it embodies debated. It is therefore as work in progress that we offer the criteria below. Please use them and let us know how they can be improved. The authors can be contacted at the email addresses given.
This article reports on an empirical evaluation of the experience, performance, and perception of a deafblind adult participant in an experimental case study on pedestrian travel in an urban environment. The case study assessed the degree of seamlessness of the wayfinding experience pertaining to routes that traverse both indoor and outdoor spaces under different modalities of technology-aided pedestrian travel. Specifically, an adult deafblind pedestrian traveler completed three indoor/outdoor routes on an urban college campus using three supplemental wayfinding support tools: a mobile application, written directions, and a tactile map. A convergent parallel mixed-methods approach was used to synthesize insights from a pre-travel questionnaire, route travel video recordings, post-travel questionnaire, and post-travel interview. Our results indicate that wayfinding performance and confidence differed considerably between the three wayfinding support tools. The tactile map afforded the most successful wayfinding and highest confidence. Wayfinding performance and confidence were lowest for the mobile application modality. The simplicity of use of a wayfinding tool is paramount for reducing cognitive load during wayfinding. In addition, information that does not match individual, user-specific information preferences and needs inhibits wayfinding performance. Current practice pertaining to the representation of digital spatial data only marginally accounts for the complexity of pedestrian human wayfinding across the gamut of visual impairment, blindness, and deafblindness. Robust orientation and mobility training and skills remain key for negotiating unexpected or adverse wayfinding situations and scenarios, irrespective of the use of a wayfinding tool. A substantial engagement of the deafblind community in both research and development is critical for achieving universal and equitable usability of mobile wayfinding technology.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.