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Project Name: Accessibility of New Media for Disabled, Elderly, and Vulnerable Individuals
Project Leader
Project Co-Leader
Researchers
- Sheelagh Carpendale
- Gerald Penn
- Ron Wakkary
- Joanna McGrenere
- Frank Russo
- Gitte Lindgaard
- Geoffrey Shea
Theme Distribution
Project Description
Digital interactive media systems are now pervasive in society, from email to web access for citizen information, from application-rich mobile phones to complete virtual societies such as Second Life. Full participation in society now requires use of such technology. In principle these systems could support access by users who find it hard to fully participate in society, for example, people with disabilities, senior citizens, and individuals in situations of vulnerability such as being isolated in long-term hospital care and recovering from trauma. Yet access to new media is almost always difficult due to physical, sensory, motor, cognitive, emotional, and social assumptions made in technology design and deployment (Petrie et al. 2005; Mihailidis, & Fernie, 2002).
The goal of this project is to explore, develop and evaluate innovative sensory substitution technologies and alternative techniques to improve access to new media systems for people with disabilities, seniors, and vulnerable individuals. For example, providing access to non-speech audio for television requires new approaches that involve visual and/or tactile stimulation. We will employ novel technologies including vibrotactile systems, social TV systems, inclusive audio/video providing alternative methods of access, speech recognition tailored to voice patterns of seniors, and new media arts forms providing support for social re-enactment. Example systems will include systems for multimodal communication, intimacy systems, and games, especially serious games designed for health purposes. Each system consists of input, output and processing requirements that depend on interactions with people. We must design for users' exceedingly variable motor, sensory, cognitive, and emotional processes that often are seriously impaired, and we will test systems in the laboratory and in field studies in order to derive useful principles for future new media design. These experimental studies and our past work will then help us produce an inclusive system development and evaluation framework for users with disabilities or impairments informed by Universal Design Theory, a deliverable that will be put forward for use by the other projects within the NCE.
Excellence of the Research
Development of Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP)
- Graduate and undergrad students from wide range of disciplines including Communication and Culture (Ryerson) Computer Science (Ryerson, Toronto, & Calgary), Education (York), Psychology (Ryerson, Carleton), New Media and Design (Ryerson, Toronto & OCAD), Human Factors (Ryerson and Toronto). - Training for students also includes work with disabled and senior citizen user communities and becoming knowledgeable about and sensitive to inclusive design and research practices.
- Students with disabilities and seniors will continue to be actively recruited to participate in the projects of the researchers.
- At the University of Toronto qualified trainees may also participate in the Health Care, Technology, and Place program, a CIHR-sponsored graduate training program (PI: Peter Coyte, Toronto) that simultaneously focuses on the social, spatial and technological configurations that characterize health care, and the NSERC-funded CREATE: CARE program (PI: Tom Chau, Toronto) that trains students to be interdisciplinary rehabilitation scientists.
Networking and Partnerships
- Partnerships with industry and user communities already exist and will be strengthened. Existing relationships include Bob Rumball Centre for the Deaf, Deaf Culture Centre, Canadian Hearing Society, Canadian National Institute for the Blind, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, Baycrest, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (New York), Albert Einstein College of Medicine (New York).
- Partnerships with seniors communities at Ryerson are already established through ACTII and Life programs, other partnerships with Toronto senior community centers and nursing homes are under development.
- A collaboration is already underway with the Kutenai Art Therapy School.
Knowledge and Technology Exchange and Exploitation
- The PI and CPI have experience with commercialization of intellectual property developed in research laboratories and have each been active participants in three start-up enterprises.
- We expect that at least one development will generate a patentable and commercializable product.
- The ICT standard for the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) has been generated and is undergoing public review. We expect it to be made into law in 2010 and compliance will be required by all public and private sector organizations with more than 20 employees within five years. Some of the results of this project will generate innovative media access solutions and procedures that can be used to satisfy compliance requirements. Other provinces are just now proceeding through a legislative process regarding accessibility, the research from this project can help to inform their work.
References to the Literature
Publications
Presentations
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