Project work or final exam „AddOn for word to improve collaborative work for blind people“

Study to support collaborative collaboration in the context of electronic word processing with the blind and visually impaired

Tags

Participatory Design, Community Based Participatory Research, Accessibility, CSCW, AddOn

Background

The research project iDESkmu (in short: inclusive DMS / ECMS and industry software in SMEs; further information on iDESkmu at https://italg.wineme.uni-siegen.de/?page_id=14 and www.projekt-ideskmu.de) is aimed at Maintenance and generation of barrier-free IT jobs.

In the course of the first field studies, it has already been shown that the topic cannot and should not be so easily limited to IT workspaces.

For this reason, we offer thematic project and final theses from the area of ​​”Accessibility”.

Task

Group work is beneficial, if not necessary, when solving many tasks. Blind people and people with visual impairments face some challenges when using common word processing programs. Many word processors such as MS Word can be used for the most part without barriers, but this often only refers to common standard functions. Special functions such as working together on documents are only partially capable of this. The interaction of these functions and practices with screen readers appears to be problematic in practical use.

Your task is to use suitable research methods to find out the need for and the challenge of working together on text documents for blind and visually impaired people. Ideally, solutions for this are developed and evaluated together with the participants (co-researchers).

Requirement

• Experience in dealing with word processing (e.g. MS Word)
• Interest in participatory approaches (Participatory Design, Community Based Participatory Research)
• (Very) good command of the German language
• Independent work, commitment and fun working in a team
• Communicative and ready to work with users
• Previous experience in qualitative field research and empirical research desirable

Target group

Students of the HCI, business informatics or related courses.

Scope

The scope is based on the course and format (thematic project or final theses).

Beginning

According to the arrangement

Contakt

Sven Bittenbinder (Dipl.-Wirt.Inform.)
Research assistant „iDESkmu“

Wirtschaftsinformatik/IT für die alternde Gesellschaft
Universität Siegen, Fakultät III
Kohlbettstraße 15
57072 Siegen

Room: US-E 117 (Campus Unteres Schloss)
Phone: 0271 740-4470
E-Mail: sven.bittenbinder@uni-siegen.de