Requirements of a pedagogical software for the training of the visual function on people with low vision

School Years: Low Vision

Cristina Espadinha; Leonor Moniz Pereira

Assistente; Professora Catedrática

Departamento de Educação Especial e Reabilitação / Faculdade de Motricidade Humana

Estrada da Costa

1495-688 Cruz Quebrada

Portugal

cespadinha@fmh.utl.pt; lmpereira@fmh.utl.pt

This report resumes our work to achieve answers to the question: what are the requirements that needed to software makers produce pedagogical software satisfactory to train the visual function on low vision’s people.

According to Corn and Koenig (1996, 4)[1] a person with low vision is:

A person who has difficulty accomplishing visual tasks, even with prescribed corrective lenses, but who can enhance his or her ability to accomplish these tasks with the use of compensatory visual strategies, low vision and other devices, and environmental modifications.

In consequence, the low vision population is geographical disperse and heterogeneous with differences in their visual abilities, pathologies, age (including onset age), past experiences, personality, needs and expectations, i.e., with different specific support needs. Moreover, society nowadays has new barriers to the low vision population since it is vision oriented and it is computerized.

A computer can present accessibility difficulties although it can be a powerfully to be used as a complementary support instrument due to the easiness of adapting materials and resources (nevertheless, there are few products designed with that propose).

Reviewing these two aspects - low vision population characteristics and the potential use of computer resources in support – we outline our problem: identify the design features to be included in informatics products to rehabilitate low vision people. Yet it still remains another problem: how to answer the problem? It will be answer by exposing how the experience was carried out.

The first step was to elaborated and validated a survey with 111 questions organized in 5 different parts:

Identification;
Professional experience with computers;
Specific software (screen magnifiers, speech synthesizers and screen readers);
General requisites (equipment, software, interactivity, graphic interface, software contents);
Specific requisites (exploration and orientation tools, icons and menus functionality and accessibility, image and text accessibility).

Afterwards, it was crucial identify the target professionals to be included in this study. In Portugal there are no data signalling the professionals linked with the rehabilitation of the visual function, it was necessary to go to different contexts, namely:

Rehabilitation (rehabilitation programmes and professional preparation);
Health (low vision teams located in hospitals);
Education (support teachers);
Others (known professionals that had worked in the business).

All contacts established to interview the professionals can be summarized as follow (table I):

Professionals types	Contacted persons	Interviewed persons
Technicians related to professional training or to rehabilitation of low vision persons	18	18
Professionals from low vision hospitals teams	7	7
Support teachers of visual impaired children/young	73	51
Other professionals	4	4
Totals	102	80

Table I – Professionals contacted and interview in this study

The final sample was constitute by 78 individuals (two were discarded after incoherencies with their answers), and their characterization can be synthesized as:

57 female and 21 male, with ages between 25 and 65 (mean 39.5) years old;
46 support teachers and 32 rehabilitation technicians (including psychologists, ophthalmologists, optometrists, researchers, resource centre professionals, etc.);
43 graduates and 6 undergraduates;
55 works in education and 21 works in rehabilitation;
only 17 professionals were specialized in visual impairment (VI), 21 were specialized in special needs and 40 professionals weren’t qualified;
the average working years in visual disabled support was 5.5 years (number influenced by 8 professionals with more than 15 years of experience against 23 in their first experience year);
the average of visual disabled individuals attended per professional was 5 (although 9 professionals had worked with more of 100 individuals in their career and 21 were in their first working case).

The data collected was analysed according statistics procedures, specifically descriptive statistic techniques. It was observed:

mode, frequencies and percentages in all questions;
relations with the questions and the professional’ sex and occupation (differences equal or higher than 20%);
the “Rho de Spearman” (nonparametric test) correlations data between all requisites questions and the professional’ identification questions (including, academic and specialized studies, working experience, number of years working with visual impaired persons and the total of cases supported in those years).

The statistic treatment was made to respond to the following hypothesis:

Most professionals share the same opinion when grading the importance of facilitate factors of computer visual function training.
The professionals’ opinion varies according to the different characterization indicators when they classify: (1) specific product characteristics; (2) a software designed for all requisites; (3) specific software requisites which allows visual function training with computer; (4) pedagogical requisites that facilitate the software use in a learning environment; and (5) requisites promoting the autonomous software use.

As you can imagine, the collected and analysed data was abundant and that’s why today it only will be presented some information describing the representative hypothesis: the professionals’ opinion varies according to different characterization indicators, in classifying the specific software requisites that allow visual function training using a computer.

To respond hypothesis, we analysed the query answers related to:

creating new contents (question 35);
equipment compatibility between hardware and specific software (questions 39 & 38);
text accessibility - characters features, character spacing and contrasts (questions 100, 102 & 101);
image accessibility - quality, contrast, proximity, overlaying, re-orientation, re-dimension, motion and movement (questions 103 to 111).

Professionals could choose between six different classifications to answer the requisites questions:

“No opinion” – no personal view;
“Obstacle” – possible support obstruction;
“Dispensable” – with low functionality;
“Interesting” – with potential depending of its use;
“Important” – to consider as support complement;
“Indispensable” – vital as support facilitator.

Question	No opinion		Obsta-cle		Dispensable		Interesting		Important		Indispensa-ble
Question	Frequencies	%	Frequencies	%	Frequencies	%	Frequencies	%	Frequencies	%	Frequencies	%
35 - allows creating new contents	—	—	—	—	—	—	9	11.5%	47	60.3%	22	28.2%
38 - compatible hardware	—	—	—	—	—	—	4	5.1%	39	50%	35	44.9%
39 - specific software compatibility	—	—	—	—	—	—	2	2.6%	31	39.7%	45	57.7%
100 - characters features adjustment	—	—	—	—	—	—	3	3.8%	18	23.1%	57	73.1%
101 - text colours/textures adjustment	—	—	—	—	—	—	3	3.8%	25	32.1%	50	64.1%
102 - character/line spacing adjustment	—	—	—	—	—	—	4	5.1%	25	32.1%	49	62.8%
103 - object colour adjustment	—	—	—	—	—	—	4	5%	39	50%	35	44.9%
104 - object contour adjustment	1	1.3%	—	—	1	1.3%	5	6.4%	35	44.9%	36	46.2%
105 - object colour adjustment	1	1.3%	—	—	—	—	4	5.1%	28	35.9%	45	57.7%
106 - adjust objects proximity	2	2.6%	—	—	1	1.3%	8	10.3%	40	51.3%	27	34.6%
107 - overlaying objects	—	—	—	—	1	1.3%	14	17.9%	40	51.3%	23	29.5%
108 - objects re-orientation	—	—	—	—	2	2.6%	11	14.1%	42	53.8%	23	29.5%
109 - objects re-dimension	—	—	—	—	—	—	8	10.3%	38	48.7%	32	41%
110 - objects moving	—	—	—	—	—	—	10	12.8%	39	50%	29	37.2%
111 - objects in motion	—	—	—	—	1	1.3%	15	19.2%	35	44.9%	27	34.6%

Table II – Percentages of professionals’ answers relating the specific software requisites classification.

As table II illustrate majority of requisites were classified as important, although the professionals consensually grade as indispensable requisites the text features, the colour adjustment and specific software compatibility.

Question	Academic Studies	Specialized Studies	Working Experience	Supporting VI - years	Total nr VI supported
35 - allows creating new contents
38 - compatible hardware				.012 (.05)
39 - specific software compatibility				.019 (.05)	.48 (.05)
100 - characters features adjustment	.014 (.05)
101 - text colours and textures adjustment				.043 (.05)
102 - character and line spacing adjustment
103 - object colour adjustment		.036 (.05)		.034 (.05)
104 - object contour adjustment				.029 (.05)
105 - object colour adjustment
106 - adjust objects proximity			.020 (.05)	.015 (.05)
107 - overlaying objects
108 - objects re-orientation
109 - objects re-dimension
110 - objects moving			.016 (.05)
111 - objects in motion

Table III – Correlations between specific software requisites classification and sample profile.

It can be observed, in table III, the positive correlations between questions and characterization features. It can be outlined that the number of years supporting visual impaired individuals seems to be the most important feature to generate correlations. These were constant results in the study, along with other findings which contribute to the conclusions withdrawal.

Summarizing all data collect by the survey, the three main indicators that seemed to influence the answers were:

the years that professionals have being supporting visual impaired persons produced 24 correlations. That is simply explained by the sample profile:
30% were in their first year of work with visual impaired individuals (23 professionals);
54% only had 3 working experience years (42 professionals);
and, 14% had more than 10 years of work with visual impaired persons (11 professionals).
the total of visual impaired individuals supported in their carrier produced 20 correlations; as well, the justification is likely to be in sample heterogeneity:
27 % is either handling their first case (21 professionals) or 50 % had worked with no more than 4 visual impaired individuals (39 professionals);
in the other extreme 27 % handle more than 25 cases (21 professionals) or more than 100 cases (10%, 8 professionals).
and, being a support teacher or a rehabilitation technician seemed to be related with the answer’s divergences in 30 questions.

After data analysis, two main conclusions were highlighted: Portuguese professionals profile and high valorisation of most indicators. In spite the professionals interviewed represented the Portuguese reality, they were the foremost limitation within this study (the majority had low expertise and low experience in visual impairment support). Regarding the valorisation of general requisites professionals’ majority has the same opinion (important or indispensable). The same opinion is shared concerning the specific requisites that allow the software use to visual function training in a learning environment. The only subject that was not consensus was the possibility of software use autonomously.

It is recommended, in future studies, to pursue the designing of guidelines to produce software to be used by low vision persons. Furthermore it is important develop and test software to visual efficiency training in low vision according to identified criteria. Finally, in Portugal it is imperative to rethink the training of visual impairment specialized professionals.

[1] Corn, A. L.; Koenig, A. J. (1996). Perspectives on Low Vision. In A. L Corn. & A. J. Koenig (Ed.). Foundations of Low Vision: Clinical and Functional Perspectives. New York: AFB Press, pp. 3 – 25.