Reading #29: Usable Gestures for Blind People, Understanding Preference and Performance

References:
Usable gestures for blind people: understanding preference and performance by Shaun K. Kane, Jacob O. Wobbrock, and Richard E. Ladner
 
Published in the CHI '11 Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems.


Author Bios:Shaun K. Kane is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland.
Jacob O. Wobbrock is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Washington.
Richard E. Ladner is currently a Professor at the University of Washington.


Summary:
Hypothesis:
That devices can be optimized to accommodate the different needs of blind people.


Methods:
Both blind and sighted people had to create gestures based on a description given by the proctor. Each person made 2 gestures. The second study delt with performance. Both the sighted and blind participants were asked to execute a series of tasks. They rated the easiness of various types of actions. 


Results:
On average the blind persons gestures had more strokes than the sighted. The edge also found more use in the gestures of the blind people. The performance turned out to be pretty much the same. Blind people also tended to prefer multi touch gestures as well as larger gestures.


Contents:
The researchers attempt to explore the possibility that blind users have different needs than sighted users. They do this through two tests. One has the blind and sighted participants create gestures to perform tasks and observes the difference between them. The second tested the differences in performance between sighted and blind subjects.


Discussion:
This was a neat paper. I think one of the best fields of computer science are the ones that are using technology to help people who have disabilities. Being able to create programs and devices that are made to help people who would otherwise have difficulty with them is one of the best applications of computer science i can think of.