Echolocation is a remarkable skill used by some blind people to navigate their surroundings by interpreting echoes from self-made sounds such as mouth clicks. Despite its potential to significantly improve blind travelers' navigational independence and quality of life (Thaler; Norman, Dodsworth, et al.), echolocation remains largely underutilized. This is partly due to limited understanding of its benefits and mechanisms, as well as its steep learning curve and the lack of optimal sensory cues for training. This study describes a carefully designed set of sounds that manipulate specific temporal cues for improved spatial perception, making echolocation more accessible to beginners and potentially speeding up the learning process. These stimuli and findings could be used to develop targeted training programs to accelerate beginners' learning, raise awareness, and promote their teaching more broadly. Furthermore, incorporating these stimuli into echolocation-based assistive devices, virtual platforms, and environments could broaden the reach and impact of echolocation on the lives of blind and visually impaired people.
This study examines the accessibility of digital map tools in relation to the Web Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, highlighting critical issues for disabled users. Despite the widespread use of digital maps across various professions and daily activities, their accessibility remains insufficient. The research involved a partial Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) comparison of the top 14 digital map tools, focusing on 15 WCAG criteria particularly relevant to geographic maps. The study expanded definitions for three criteria - 1.1.1 Non-Text Content, 1.4.11 Non-text Contrast, and 2.1.1 Keyboard Accessibility - to better apply them to map contexts. Findings revealed significant accessibility shortcomings, with only one tool (Audiom) achieving full compliance and others lacking adequate text alternatives, proper contrast, and keyboard operability. The discussion emphasizes the urgency for map developers to enhance accessibility, especially in light of upcoming legal requirements like the ADA Title II regulations. Making maps accessible not only aids users with disabilities but also offers business benefits by expanding the user base and fostering innovation. The study provides a systematic evaluation framework and clear guidelines to encourage greater digital map accessibility within an academic context.
Interest in the benefits of braille for people who are blind is high among professionals in the blindness field, but we know little about how braille is used in the workplace. The broad purpose of this study was to learn how employed people who are blind use braille on the job. Specific topics investigated included: work tasks refreshable braille technology (RBT) is used for, personal and job characteristics of RBT users compared to non-users, and factors associated with RBT use among workers with at least moderate braille skills. This study utilized data from 304 participants in a longitudinal research project investigating assistive technology use in the workplace by people who are blind. Two-thirds of our participants used braille on the job, and more than half utilized RBT. Workers who used RBT did not necessarily use it for all computer-related tasks they performed. RBT use was generally not significantly related to job characteristics, except for working for a blindness organization. RBT use was not significantly related to general personal characteristics but it was significantly different based on disability-related characteristics. Only older age and higher braille skills were significantly associated with RBT use on the job in a multivariate logistic regression model.
The You Described, We Archived dataset (YuWA) is a collaboration between San Francisco State University and The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute. It includes audio description (AD) data collected worldwide 2013-2022 through YouDescribe, an accessibility tool for adding audio descriptions to YouTube videos. YouDescribe, a web-based audio description tool along with an iOS viewing app, has a community of 12,000+ average annual visitors, with approximately 3,000 volunteer describers, and has created over 5,500 audio described YouTube videos. Blind and visually impaired (BVI) viewers request videos, which then are saved to a wish list and volunteer audio describers select a video, write a script, record audio clips, and edit clip placement to create an audio description. The AD tracks are stored separately, posted for public view at https://youdescribe.org/ and played together with the YouTube video. The YuWA audio description data paired with the describer and viewer metadata, and collection timeline has a large number of research applications including artificial intelligence, machine learning, sociolinguistics, audio description, video understanding, video retrieval and video-language grounding tasks.
There is an estimated 500,000 people in the U.S. who are deaf and who use ASL and live in the U.S. Compared to the general population, deaf people are at greater risk of having chronic health problems and experience significant health disparities and inequities (Sanfacon, Leffers, Miller, Stabbe, DeWindt, Wagner, & Kushalnagar, 2020; Kushalnagar, Reesman, Holcomb, & Ryan, 2019; Kushalnagar & Miller, 2019). Much of the disparities are explained by the barriers in the environment, such as the unavailability of materials in ASL and lack of healthcare professionals who know how to provide deaf patient-centered care. Intersecting social determinants of health (e.g., intrinsic - low education; and extrinsic - barrier to healthcare services) create a mutually constituted vulnerability for health disparities when a person is deaf (Kushalnagar & Miller, 2019; Lesch, Brucher, Chapple, R., & Chapple, K., 2019; Smith & Chin, 2012). Moreover, the longstanding history of inequitable access to language and education, and a lack of printed information and materials, leave people who are deaf and use ASL unaware of opportunities to participate in cutting-edge research/clinical trials. An unintended consequence, therefore, is that PIs neglect to include people who are deaf and use ASL in their subject sample pools, and this marginalized population continues to be at disparity for health outcomes and also clinical research participation. One barrier is the unavailability of informed consent materials that are accessible in ASL. The current research study conducted by our team at the Center for Deaf Health Equity at Gallaudet University attempts to address the language barrier to the consent process through a careful reconsideration of its traditional English format and the development of an American Sign Language (ASL) informed consent app. This team successfully leveraged existing machine learning methods to develop a way to navigate and signature an informed consent process using ASL. We call this new method of navigation and signature "ASL consent." In our findings, we found that deaf people who are primarily college educated were more likely to agree that the process for obtaining ASL consent through an accessible app is comparable to traditional English consent.
