skip to main content
10.1145/2982142.2982168acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesassetsConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

How People with Low Vision Access Computing Devices: Understanding Challenges and Opportunities

Published: 23 October 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Low vision is a pervasive condition in which people have difficulty seeing even with corrective lenses. People with low vision frequently use mainstream computing devices, however how they use their devices to access information and whether digital low vision accessibility tools provide adequate support remains understudied. We addressed these questions with a contextual inquiry study. We observed 11 low vision participants using their smartphones, tablets, and computers when performing simple tasks such as reading email. We found that participants preferred accessing information visually than aurally (e.g., screen readers), and juggled a variety of accessibility tools. However, accessibility tools did not provide them with appropriate support. Moreover, participants had to constantly perform multiple gestures in order to see content comfortably. These challenges made participants inefficient-they were slow and often made mistakes; even tech savvy participants felt frustrated and not in control. Our findings reveal the unique needs of low vision people, which differ from those of people with no vision and design opportunities for improving low vision accessibility tools.

References

[1]
Beyer, H. and Holtzblatt, K. 1997. Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems. Elsevier.
[2]
Blindness Solutions: JAWS: http://www.freedomscientific.com/Products/Blindness/JAWS. Accessed: 2016-05-06.
[3]
Brody, B.L., Field, L.C., Roch-Levecq, A.C., Depp, C., Edland, S.D., Minasyan, L. and Brown, S.I. 2012. Computer Use among Patients with Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Ophthalmic Epidemiology. 19, 4 (Aug. 2012), 190--195.
[4]
Casten, R.J., Maloney, E.K. and Rovner, B.W. 2005. Knowledge and Use of Low Vision Services Among Persons with Age-related Macular Degeneration. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness. 99, 11 (2005), 720--724.
[5]
Chiang, M.F., Cole, R.G., Gupta, S., Kaiser, G.E. and Starren, J.B. 2005. Computer and World Wide Web accessibility by visually disabled patients: problems and solutions. Survey of ophthalmology. 50, 4 (Jan. 2005), 394--405.
[6]
Common Types of Low Vision: http://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/caring-for-your-vision/low-vision/common-types-of-low-vision-sso=y. Accessed: 2015-09-21.
[7]
Congdon, N., O'Colmain, B., Klaver, C.C.W., Klein, R., Muñoz, B., Friedman, D.S., Kempen, J., Taylor, H.R. and Mitchell, P. 2004. Causes and prevalence of visual impairment among adults in the United States. Archives of ophthalmology (Chicago, Ill.: 1960). 122, 4 (Apr. 2004), 477--85.
[8]
Crossland, M.D., Macedo, A.F. and Rubin, G.S. 2010. Electronic books as low vision aids. British Journal of Ophthalmology. 94, 8 (Aug. 2010), 1109--1109.
[9]
Crossland, M.D., S. Silva, R., Macedo, A.F., Silva, R.S., Macedo, A.F., S. Silva, R. and Macedo, A.F. 2014. Smartphone, tablet computer and e-reader use by people with vision impairment. Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics. 34, 5 (Sep. 2014), 552--557.
[10]
Dougherty, B.E., Kehler, K.B., Jamara, R., Patterson, N., Valenti, D. and Vera-Diaz, F. a. 2011. Abandonment of Low-Vision Devices in an Outpatient Population. Optometry and Vision Science. 88, 11 (Nov. 2011), 1283--1287.
[11]
Gajos, K.Z., Wobbrock, J.O. and Weld, D.S. 2008. Improving the performance of motor-impaired users with automatically-generated, ability-based interfaces. Proc. CHI '08, ACM, New York, New York, USA, 1257--1266.
[12]
Gill, K., Mao, A., Powell, A.M. and Sheidow, T. 2013. Digital reader vs print media: the role of digital technology in reading accuracy in age-related macular degeneration. Eye. 27, 5 (May 2013), 639--643.
[13]
Gill, K., Mao, A., Powell, A.M. and Sheidow, T. 2013. Digital reader vs print media: the role of digital technology in reading accuracy in age-related macular degeneration. Eye (London, England). 27, 5 (May 2013), 639--43.
[14]
Home of the free NVDA screen reader: http://www.nvaccess.org/. Accessed: 2016-05-06.
[15]
Horowitz, A., Reinhardt, J.P., Boerner, K. and Travis, L.A. 2003. The influence of health, social support quality and rehabilitation on depression among disabled elders. Aging Ment Health. 7, 5 (Sep. 2003), 342--350.
[16]
Humphry, R.C. and Thompson, G.M. 1986. Low vision aids-evaluation in a general eye department. Transactions of the ophthalmological societies of the United Kingdom. 105 ( Pt 3, (Jan. 1986), 296--303.
[17]
Jacko, J. a and Sears, A. 1998. Designing interfaces for an overlooked user group: Considering the visual profiles of partially sighted users. Annual ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies, Proceedings. New York, NY, United States (1998), 75--77.
[18]
Jacko, J.A., Barreto, A.B., Marmet, G.J., Chu, J.Y.M., Bautsch, H.S., Scott, I.U. and Rosa R.H., J. 2000. Low vision: The role of visual acuity in the efficiency of cursor movement. Annual ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies, Proceedings. (2000), 1--8.
[19]
Janiszewski, R., Heath-watson, S.L., Adrienne, Y., Rosenthal, A.M. and Do, Q. 2006. The Low Visibility of Low Vision?: Increasing Awareness through Public Health Education. Journal of Visual Impairments and Blindness. 100, Special Supplement (2006), 849--862.
[20]
Kane, S.K., Jayant, C., Wobbrock, J.O. and Ladner, R.E. 2009. Freedom to Roam: A Study of Mobile Device Adoption and Accessibility for People with Visual and Motor Disabilities. Proc. ASSETS '09, ACM, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. (2009), 115--122.
[21]
Margrain, T.H. 2000. Helping blind and partially sighted people to read: the effectiveness of low vision aids. British Journal of Ophthalmology. 84, 8 (Aug. 2000), 919--921.
[22]
Massof, R.W. 2002. A model of the prevalence and incidence of low vision and blindness among adults in the U.S. Optometry and vision science?: official publication of the American Academy of Optometry. 79, 1 (Jan. 2002), 31--8.
[23]
McIlwaine, G.G., Bell, J.A. and Dutton, G.N. 1991. Low vision aids-is our service cost effective Eye (London, England). 5 ( Pt 5), 5 (Jan. 1991), 607--11.
[24]
Minto, H. and Butt, I.A. 2004. Low vision devices and training. Community eye health / International Centre for Eye Health. 17, 49 (Jan. 2004), 6--7.
[25]
Owsley, C., McGwin, G., Lee, P.P., Wasserman, N. and Searcey, K. 2009. Characteristics of low-vision rehabilitation services in the United States. Archives of ophthalmology (Chicago, Ill.: 1960). 127, 5 (May 2009), 681--9.
[26]
Saldaña, J. 2013. The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage
[27]
Scott, I.U., Feuer, W.J. and Jacko, J.A. 2002. Impact of graphical user interface screen features on computer task accuracy and speed in a cohort of patients with age-related macular degeneration. American Journal of Ophthalmology. 134, 6 (Dec. 2002), 857--862.
[28]
Scott, I.U., Feuer, W.J. and Jacko, J.A. 2002. Impact of visual function on computer task accuracy and reaction time in a cohort of patients with age-related macular degeneration. American Journal of Ophthalmology. 133, 3 (Mar. 2002), 350--357.
[29]
Shinohara, K. and Wobbrock, J.O. 2011. In the shadow of misperception. Proc. CHI '11, ACM, New York, New York, USA, 705--714.
[30]
Theofanos, M.F. and Redish, J.G. 2005. Helping Low-vision and Other Users with Web Sites That Meet Their Needs: Is One Site for All Feasible? Technical communication. 52, 1 (2005), 9--20.
[31]
Virtanen, P. and Laatikainen, L. 1991. Primary success with low vision aids in age-related macular degeneration. Acta ophthalmologica. 69, 4 (May 1991), 484--90.
[32]
Watson, G.R., De l'Aune, W., Stelmack, J., Maino, J. and Long, S. 1997. National survey of the impact of low vision device use among veterans. Optometry and vision science?: official publication of the American Academy of Optometry. 74, 5 (May 1997), 249--59.
[33]
ZoomText Magnifier/Reader: http://www.zoomtext.com/products/zoomtext-magnifierreader/. Accessed: 2016-05-06.
[34]
CDC - About Vision Health - Common Eye Disorders - Vision Health Initiative (VHI).
[35]
Massof, R.W. and Lidoff, L. 2001. Issues in low vision rehabilitation: Service delivery, policy, and funding. American Foundation for the Blind. Vancouver

Cited By

View all
  • (2025)Interactive Magnification for Low-Vision UsersHandbook of Human Computer Interaction10.1007/978-3-319-27648-9_121-1(1-23)Online publication date: 23-Jan-2025
  • (2024)Please Understand My Disability: An Analysis of YouTubers' Discourse on Disability ChallengesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869468:CSCW2(1-25)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
  • (2024)Improving Usability of Data Charts in Multimodal Documents for Low Vision UsersProceedings of the 26th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction10.1145/3678957.3685714(498-507)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2024
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. How People with Low Vision Access Computing Devices: Understanding Challenges and Opportunities

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    ASSETS '16: Proceedings of the 18th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility
    October 2016
    362 pages
    ISBN:9781450341240
    DOI:10.1145/2982142
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 23 October 2016

    Permissions

    Request permissions for this article.

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. accessibility
    2. computing devices
    3. contextual inquiry
    4. low vision

    Qualifiers

    • Research-article

    Conference

    ASSETS '16
    Sponsor:

    Acceptance Rates

    ASSETS '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 24 of 95 submissions, 25%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 436 of 1,556 submissions, 28%

    Upcoming Conference

    ASSETS '25

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)252
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)19
    Reflects downloads up to 14 Feb 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2025)Interactive Magnification for Low-Vision UsersHandbook of Human Computer Interaction10.1007/978-3-319-27648-9_121-1(1-23)Online publication date: 23-Jan-2025
    • (2024)Please Understand My Disability: An Analysis of YouTubers' Discourse on Disability ChallengesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869468:CSCW2(1-25)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
    • (2024)Improving Usability of Data Charts in Multimodal Documents for Low Vision UsersProceedings of the 26th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction10.1145/3678957.3685714(498-507)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2024
    • (2024)Hearing the Bullseye: An Auditory-Cued Archery Exergame for the Visually Impaired and Their Sighted Family and FriendsCompanion Proceedings of the 2024 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3665463.3678829(384-391)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2024
    • (2024)Designing a Safe Auditory-Cued Archery Exertion Game for the Visually Impaired and Sighted to Enjoy TogetherProceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3663548.3688510(1-6)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
    • (2024)StereoMath: An Accessible and Musical Equation EditorProceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3663548.3688487(1-5)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
    • (2024)Vision-Based Assistive Technologies for People with Cerebral Visual Impairment: A Review and Focus StudyProceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3663548.3675637(1-20)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
    • (2024)Intersecting Liminality: Acquiring a Smartphone as a Blind or Low Vision Older AdultProceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3663548.3675622(1-14)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
    • (2024)Understanding Low Vision Graphical Perception of Bar ChartsProceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3663548.3675616(1-10)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
    • (2024)"I Wish You Could Make the Camera Stand Still": Envisioning Media Accessibility Interventions with People with AphasiaProceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3663548.3675598(1-17)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
    • Show More Cited By

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Figures

    Tables

    Media

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media