Dear All, I am currently conducting research on blind web designers and authors. The Web Interfaces & Blindness Project (WIBP) intends to survey and interview English speaking people of all ages who are registered blind and design or program webpages, in order to discover:
1. strategies for designing and encoding webpages without vision 2. the problems encountered by blind web designers 3. how blind web designers imagine a webpage 4. how blind web designers encode computer interfaces that can be used by both blind and sighted users 5. blind web designers' understanding of visual programming languages; in particular what they understand by: 5.1. Hyperlinks, Java applets and Flash animation 5.2. The concept of a two-dimensional interface, such as a form 5.3. Designing pages that have to change to fit different sizes of monitors or mobile telephones 6. whether blind web designers who are born blind or become blind very early in their life are different from blind web designers who have become blind later in their life Aims and Objectives of WIBP The aim of this research is to produce a number of case studies that describe "non-visual" web design and encoding, in order to develop a better understanding of access and development of websites. The objective of this research is to inform a greater understanding of how the mind, both visually and non-visually, understands creating websites and similar two-dimensional interfaces / images used in the design of webpages. This will ultimately inform better designed interfaces and more effective web methodologies. The Researcher WIBP is a solo, un-funded research project by Dr. Simon Hayhoe, visiting academic in the Centre for the Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, London School of Economics & Political Science, UK. Alongside his research experience, he has experience of teaching ICT, IT and Computing to children as young as 3 all the way through to adults on IT degree level courses. Simon has a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Technical Communication, a Postgraduate Certificate in Education in technology education, and a Master of Education and a Doctor of Philosophy in the education of students who are blind and visually impaired - his postgraduate degrees specialised in art education. He also runs the website http://www.blindnessandarts.com <http://www.blindnessandarts.com/> and can be contacted if you wish to ask questions and to return your questionnaire, via the email address: edi...@blindnessandarts.com <mailto:edi...@blindnessandarts.com> The Extended Questionnaire Could you please answer each question underneath, providing as much detail as possible. Please do not send a separate document. If you wish to save the final document as a PDF I would be very grateful. Alternatively, if this is not possible could you please save it as an RTF document. All information will be kept anonymously, and you will only be referred to using a pseudonym in any subsequent case studies - your identities will also be made suitably ambiguous so as to further preserve anonymity. 1. Could you please provide the following personal details: i) Your Age: Your answer here ii) Are you registered blind in your home country: Your answer here iii) How long ago were you registered blind, and the official term for your form of blindness: Your answer here iv) Before being registered blind, did you have a visual impairment, and how long did you have this impairment: Your answer here v) Did you attend mainstream school, university / college, a school for the blind or another type of school: Your answer here vi) Are you totally blind, or do you have some visual perception. If you are not totally blind, please describe your visual impairment / blindness: Your answer here 2. Could you please provide the following details about your general computing experience - not including your web design experience. i) What originally prompted you to use a computer: Your answer here ii) Could you please describe your non-website design computer usage: Your answer here iii) Could you please describe your first experiences of just using a computer - not including designing web pages, as this will be covered in question 3 -, how long ago it was and where it was (please include whether it was at school or at home, the type of interface you used, your age, whether it was a good or bad experience, the type of programs you used, the type of hardware you used): Your answer here iv) Please describe how you first browsed the Internet / World Wide Web - this does not include any web-design - how long ago it was and where it was: Your answer here v) Could you please describe the types of interface you have used in the past for normal, non-programming usage, from the earliest to the latest. Could you please describe your use of interfaces when using common programs, such as word processors, spreadsheets and databases: Your answer here vi) If you have come across graphical user interfaces (GUIs), could you please describe your use of them: 3. Could you please provide the following details about your web design experience: i) Could you please tell me why you design web pages (e.g. is it because you have to for business reasons or did you decide to design a website for a hobby or out of personal interest): Your answer here ii) Could you please tell me which languages you use and describe your current / recent projects: Your answer here iii) Could you please describe your first experiences of web page design - this is different to question 2 (ii) which asked about general computing experience - how long ago it was and where it was (e.g. whether it was at school or at home, the type of interface you used, your age, whether it was a good or bad experience, the type of web design environment you used): Your answer here iv) Please describe how you currently design a web page interface (e.g. which elements does it have, how do you imagine a webpage in front of you, how do you envisage hyperlinks, Flash images and Java applets): Your answer here v) If you have ever come across graphical interfaces since becoming blind, could you please describe your use of them: Your answer here 4. If possible, could you please provide screen shots of the interfaces you have designed - one or two will be sufficient - and could you please provide screen shots of some examples of extracts of your coding - again one or two will suffice. NB: we will blur the identity of this web page in any published documentation: Thank you very much for participating in this project. I greatly appreciate your time. I appreciate your help. Faithfully, Simon --------------------------------------------------------- Dr Simon Hayhoe FBCS Head of ICT Leicester Grammar School London Road Great Glen Leicestershire LE8 9FL UK This message is confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. If you have received it by mistake, please let us know by e-mail reply and delete it from your system; you may not copy this message or disclose its contents to anyone. The integrity and security of this message cannot be guaranteed on the Internet. 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