Skip to main content
Login | Suomeksi | På svenska | In English

Browsing by Subject "blind"

Sort by: Order: Results:

  • Näkövammaisten tietokoneavusteinen tiedon hankinta 
    Lahti, Lauri (Helsingin yliopistoUniversity of HelsinkiHelsingfors universitet, 2006)
    The study examines various uses of computer technology in acquisition of information for visually impaired people. For this study 29 visually impaired persons took part in a survey about their experiences concerning acquisition of infomation and use of computers, especially with a screen magnification program, a speech synthesizer and a braille display. According to the responses, the evolution of computer technology offers an important possibility for visually impaired people to cope with everyday activities and interacting with the environment. Nevertheless, the functionality of assistive technology needs further development to become more usable and versatile. Since the challenges of independent observation of environment were emphasized in the survey, the study led into developing a portable text vision system called Tekstinäkö. Contrary to typical stand-alone applications, Tekstinäkö system was constructed by combining devices and programs that are readily available on consumer market. As the system operates, pictures are taken by a digital camera and instantly transmitted to a text recognition program in a laptop computer that talks out loud the text using a speech synthesizer. Visually impaired test users described that even unsure interpretations of the texts in the environment given by Tekstinäkö system are at least a welcome addition to complete perception of the environment. It became clear that even with a modest development work it is possible to bring new, useful and valuable methods to everyday life of disabled people. Unconventional production process of the system appeared to be efficient as well. Achieved results and the proposed working model offer one suggestion for giving enough attention to easily overlooked needs of the people with special abilities. ACM Computing Classification System (1998): K.4.2 Social Issues: Assistive technologies for persons with disabilities I.4.9 Image processing and computer vision: Applications
  • The Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivations Influencing Blind and Visually Impaired Ukrainian Refugees and Internally Displaced People During the Ukrainian Crisis 
    Wheeler, Laurel (2022)
    This thesis uses motivation theory to examine the primary extrinsic and intrinsic motivators influencing blind and visually impaired Ukrainian refugees and internally displaced people as they make decisions in the midst of the Ukraine crisis. Blind and visually impaired Ukrainian refugees and internally displaced people were interviewed face to face in Poland as well as through email and social media. Data was gathered detailing the types of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations that influenced their decisions to become refugees or remain internally displaced in Ukraine. Data was also gathered regarding their experiences as blind and visually impaired Ukrainians, their interactions with the systems, resources and processes in place designed to assist Ukrainians during this conflict, and their expectations for the future. This thesis found that factors such as trust and fear can cause extrinsic motivations to function as intrinsic ones, and can also cause intrinsic motivations to shift into extrinsic motivations. These motivations can function opposite in the lives of the blind and visually impaired as they do in the lives of sighted Ukrainians. This thesis also identified the primary extrinsic and intrinsic motivators that blind and visually impaired Ukrainians described which influenced their decision making.

Yhteystiedot

HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO