Seeing our Blind Spots: Smart Glasses-based Simulation to Increase Design Students' Awareness of Visual Impairment

Qing Zhang, Giulia Barbareschi, Yifei Huang, Juling Li, Yun Suen Pai, Jamie Ward, Kai Kunze

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

As the population ages, many will acquire visual impairments. To improve design for these users, it is essential to build awareness of their perspective during everyday routines, especially for design students. Although several visual impairment simulation toolkits exist in both academia and as commercial products, analog, and static visual impairment simulation tools do not simulate effects concerning the user's eye movements. Meanwhile, VR and video see-through-based AR simulation methods are constrained by smaller fields of view when compared with the natural human visual field and also suffer from vergence-accommodation conflict (VAC) which correlates with visual fatigue, headache, and dizziness. In this paper, we enable an on-the-go, VAC-free, visually impaired experience by leveraging our optical see-through glasses. The FOV of our glasses is approximately 160 degrees for horizontal and 140 degrees for vertical, and participants can experience both losses of central vision and loss of peripheral vision at different severities. Our evaluation (n =14) indicates that the glasses can significantly and effectively reduce visual acuity and visual field without causing typical motion sickness symptoms such as headaches and or visual fatigue. Questionnaires and qualitative feedback also showed how the glasses helped to increase participants' awareness of visual impairment.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationUIST 2022 - Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
ISBN (Electronic)9781450393201
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022 Oct 29
Event35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, UIST 2022 - Bend, United States
Duration: 2022 Oct 292022 Nov 2

Publication series

NameUIST 2022 - Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

Conference

Conference35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, UIST 2022
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityBend
Period22/10/2922/11/2

Keywords

  • aging vision
  • eye-tracking
  • smart eyewear
  • visual impairment

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Seeing our Blind Spots: Smart Glasses-based Simulation to Increase Design Students' Awareness of Visual Impairment'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this