[HCC Seminar Series]: Designing bodily technology with sighted guiding companions

 

The event is being organised as part of the Women in STEMM Season, and is also part of the HCC seminar series hosted by the Department of Informatics.

Please note, it is only open to King's College London staff and students.

Abstract

Prior work on Assistive Technology (AT) for People with Visual Impairments (PVI) has treated navigation largely as an independent activity. Consequently, much effort has been focused on providing individual users with wayfinding details about the environment, proximity, obstacles, and landmarks. However, independence is also achieved by PVI through interacting with others, such as in sighted guiding. Drawing on the interdependence concept, my interest is to explore how AT can be reoriented for supporting collaborations between PVI and sighted companions. I present my current research project aiming to adopt a soma design approach to design wearable technology for interdependence in participatory workshops with sighted guiding companions. I believe results will have important implications for both design methods and interventions. These implications will offer points of reflection on access as a collective achievement, promoting diversity, inclusion, and social justice for people with disabilities more broadly.

Biography

Beatrice Vincenzi is a Digital Futures postdoctoral fellow at KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden). She is interested in inclusivity and accessibility. Her research sits at the intersection of HCI, critical disability studies, and AI. She is passionate about exploring participatory design methods which make space for accessibility, interdependence, and AI.

How to join

In order to attend, you must please register through Eventbrite.