Reframing Disability as Competency: Unpacking Everyday Technology Practices of People with Visual Impairments

Reyes-Cruz, Gisela; Fischer, Joel E.; Reeves, Stuart

Abstract

More than a billion people in the world live with some form of visual impairment, and a wide variety of technologies are now routinely used by them in the course of 'getting on' in everyday life. However, little is known about the ways in which assistive and non-assistive technologies are brought to bear on material practices. We present findings from a four-month ethnographic study facilitated by a local branch of a UK charity that supports people with visual impairments. Our study explores mainstream and assistive technology use within their everyday lives. We identify three main sites for technology use: social relations and communication practices, textual reading practices, and mobility practices. Via an ethnographic approach we contribute to understanding how people accomplish such practices, and in doing so, uncover the practical competencies that enable people with visual impairments to conduct their everyday activities. Thus we investigate how disability can be thought of in terms of competencies, arguing that understanding of competencies can enrich the design of technologies that fit the needs of people with visual impairments.

Citation

Reyes-Cruz, G., Fischer, J. E., & Reeves, S. (2020, April). Reframing Disability as Competency: Unpacking Everyday Technology Practices of People with Visual Impairments. Presented at CHI '20: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Honolulu HI USA

• Presentation Conference Type: Edited Proceedings
• Conference Name: CHI '20: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
• Start Date: Apr 25, 2020
• End Date: Apr 30, 2020
• Acceptance Date: Dec 16, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Apr 23, 2020
• Publication Date: Apr 21, 2020
• Deposit Date: Apr 22, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 27, 2020
• Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• Pages: 1–13
• Series Title: Human Factors in Computing Systems
• Book Title: CHI '20: Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
• ISBN: 9781450367080
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376767
• Keywords: visual impairments; disability; ethnography; ethnomethodology; assistive technology
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4326222
• Publisher URL: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3313831.3376767
• Related Public URLs: https://chi2020.acm.org/