Deborah Fels

Deborah Fels
Toronto Metropolitan University · Inclusive Media and Design Centre

About

142
Publications
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4,294
Citations

Publications

Publications (142)
Chapter
Full-text available
Access to music for people who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing (D/HoH) includes the instrumental portion and the lyrics. While closed captioning can provide the lyrics in text format, it does not necessarily provide accurate timing of the lyrics with the instrumental portion. This study aims to clarify how vibrotactile stimuli affect understanding the ons...
Article
Full-text available
Objective People adjusting to living with a chronic disability, such as chronic pain, seek support and resources from societal systems, including health systems, to help them cope with this reality. This case study describes the use of a digital health platform designed to help in that quest. Method MyHealthMyRecord (MHMR), is being developed to r...
Article
Live captioning is a challenging task that requires intense concentration to convert audio to text in real-time. Despite the importance of live captioning for accessibility, little is known about the subjective workload of captioners in this context. This study aimed to measure the subjective workload of live captioners using the NASA-TLX and to ex...
Article
Full-text available
Closed Captioning (CC) is a telecommunications service to display textual information equivalent to audio. Although the primary consumer group is Deaf (D) and Hard of Hearing (HOH) viewers, they are typically excluded from the quality assessment process. Including D and HOH viewers for all assessments is nearly impossible and requires enormous effo...
Preprint
Full-text available
p>[First paragraph]: "Without access to audio description, individuals who are visually impaired (that is, are blind or have low vision) may be at a unique social disadvantage because they are unable to participate fully in a culture that is based on and heavily saturated by the enjoyment of audiovisual entertainments (Packer & Kirchner, 1997). Aud...
Preprint
p>[First paragraph]: "Without access to audio description, individuals who are visually impaired (that is, are blind or have low vision) may be at a unique social disadvantage because they are unable to participate fully in a culture that is based on and heavily saturated by the enjoyment of audiovisual entertainments (Packer & Kirchner, 1997). Aud...
Chapter
Full-text available
Live captioning in broadcasting involves the translation from spoken words in broadcasted programming to text equivalents, speaker identification and some non-speech audio information in real-time where there is little or no opportunity for editing, or correction. Some of this live content can be too fast to type, and/or read, which then can transl...
Article
Full-text available
A novel quality assessment system design for closed captioning (CC) is proposed. CC was originally designed to serve hearing-impaired audiences. Traditional quality assessment models focus on empirical methods only, measuring quantitative accuracy by counting the number of word errors in the captions for a segment. However, hearing-impaired audienc...
Article
Full-text available
Background Mixed Reality Technologies (MRTs) spanning the physical‐virtual continuum offer possibilities for machine‐based prompting to support people with dementia. The effectiveness of MRTs requires users to experience ‘presence’ – the feeling of being there and the illusion of non‐ mediation by the technology ‐ which has not been explored in dem...
Chapter
Full-text available
Blended Reality environments have the potential to provide scalable solutions that are affordable, adaptable and easily deployable to support people with dementia. Use of these technologies is associated with experience of presence which is an experience with technologically mediated perceptions that generates a feeling of being there and the illus...
Chapter
Using single switch scanning with a mobile Smartphone can often be frustrating and slow to use. Phone functions, such as answering a call, either have specific timeout imitations that are set by service providers or may not be accessible using non-standard access methods. Single switch scanning can take longer than these timeout settings allow, res...
Chapter
People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), particular young people often can be overwhelmed by too much environmental stimulation such as sound and complicated visuals. WebMoti, a hardware/software robot presence system, links students in real-time with their regular classes when they are unable to attend. Students with ASD have control over how m...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Emerging technologies such as Mixed Reality Technologies (MRTs) could offer possibilities to support People with Dementia (PWD). This study examined interactions of PWD with two MRTs - HoloLens and Osmo. Ten participants (MoCA = 18 to 23, Age= 63 to 88 years) played a game of Tangram on Osmo. Six of these participants played Young Conker on HoloLen...
Article
Full-text available
As a primary user group, Deaf or Hard of Hearing (D/HOH) audiences use Closed Captioning (CC) service to enjoy the TV programs with audio by reading text. However, the D/HOH communities are not completely satisfied with the quality of CC even though the government regulators entail certain rules in the CC quality factors. The measure of the CC qual...
Article
Full-text available
An extended design and evaluation framework of eudaimonia (personal growth, expressiveness) and hedonia (pleasure, comfort) was applied to a cooperative game for older adults who rely on power mobility. The purpose was to address two psychosocial well-being needs (perceptions of performance mastery and empathy enhancement) through a game with an in...
Conference Paper
People with dementia want to continue their everyday activities but struggle due to cognitive impairment. Sequencing of the steps in an activity is a major problem. Previous work, for example that of (Mihailidis, Boger, Craig, & Hoey, 2008; Pigot, Mayers, & Giroux, 2003) suggests that there is huge potential for machine-based prompting to support p...
Article
Full-text available
Audio description (AD) is one of the main methods that people who are blind or low vision (B/LV) use to access film, television, and theatre content. AD is a second audio track inserted into the space(s) where speech is absent, which tends to be only a few seconds. Contained in that second track is an audio description of the important visual infor...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Closed Captioning (CC) is a telecommunication service to provide Deaf or Hard of Hearing (D/HOH) audiences the text equivalent of what hearing audiences experience in TV. The quality of CC is often interpreted as an accuracy and assessed in the empirical measure of counting number of errors. Although the regulators necessitate certain rules in the...
Chapter
People with complex chronic conditions must learn to live with the disabilities and challenges that come with those conditions on a continuous basis. MyHealthMyRecord (MHMR) was designed to allow people to record video vignettes of enabling and/or disabling situations, opinions, musings, and other thoughts regarding their attempts to cope with, man...
Chapter
Flourishment is conceptualized as an engagement experience associated with eudaimonic flourishing, a component of psychological wellbeing. Analogous to nourishment, flourishment drives a sense of being one’s authentic best self (eudaimonia) in a way that can be deliberately encouraged and registered within health systems, and their records, by desi...
Article
Full-text available
Gamification, or the use of game elements in non-game contexts, has become a popular and increasingly accepted method of engaging learners in educational settings. However, there have been few comparisons of different kinds of courses and students, particularly in terms of discipline and content. Additionally, little work has reported on course ins...
Article
In this article, the authors present the first documented implementation of a director-produced and delivered audio description (AD) for devising theatre. In a single live, audio-described performance of Highway 63: The Fort Mac Show at Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto, Canada, the director/describer’s artistically informed approach focuses on ent...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This paper presents results from the expert survey data on the cognitive, physical and perceptual abilities needed by older adults and people with disability to participate in 18 user centered needs elicitation methods(UCNEM) and the principles for the first iteration of a decision support matrix to support determination of appropriate needs elicit...
Article
Full-text available
Older powered chair users’ perceptions on and attitudes towards mixed reality and modern facilitating technologies, such as tablets and smartphones, was explored to inform the design of mixed reality games that involve power mobility. Eleven older powered chair users (aged 55 and over) were interviewed in focus groups about their knowledge of, adop...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Older adults have unique perspectives on technology use that may involve having acquired disabilities, be more likely to be novice users and have more life experiences/biases that can influence user testing results. This literature review is aimed at assessing the application of basic User Centered Design (UCD) Instruments with Older Adults. 41 res...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Vibrotactile stimulation can be used as a substitute for audio or visual stimulation for people who are deaf or blind. This can enable some media content to be made more accessible to audiences with disabilities because the vibrotactile sense can be engaged. Artists have become interested in creating vibrotactile art as a new and exciting art form....
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Ensuring that mixed reality spaces are inclusive to those who have motor impairments requires evaluating and, if necessary, modifying existing technology for the assistive mobility devices they use. Heads-up displays (HUDs) are a common facilitator of virtual augmentations on physical reality, especially for motor vehicles. However, little research...
Conference Paper
In the past few years we have seen a shift in the use of smartphones from a social setting to a corporate setting. Smartphones have been around for the past decade and there appears to have been an increase in their use in meetings and other collocated settings. Since this is a relatively new phenomenon, there is a lack of research in this area. Th...
Conference Paper
Older adults, particularly the frail elderly, have limited communication support options other than those that have been designed for those with disabilities. The technologies supporting people with disabilities have traditionally relied on single-purpose, heavy and costly “made for the disabled” systems, most of which are outdated and designed to...
Conference Paper
Post production audio description (AD) has become recognized as a standard accessibility requirement for blind and low vision (B/LV) audiences and their friends and family. Although it is standardized, it is not commonly used due to the intensive effort involved in its creation and the lack of browser-based tools available for its production. In th...
Article
Full-text available
The advent of affordable and powerful mobile technology has allowed for explorations in mixed reality that merges virtual and physical space. However, the social and entertainment value and efficacy of mixed reality platforms for adult powered chair users has not been widely explored. In this article, we introduce the Mobility Games project, which...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
For older adults, adopting a powered mobility aid signals a life transition that affects several well-being factors: their self-image, motivation, and self-perception of ability, but also how other people - friends, family, coworkers, strangers - relate to and perceive these individuals. We present initial findings from a user study in which we (a)...
Preprint
The Emoti-Chair is a novel technology to enhance entertainment through vibrotactile stimulation. We assessed the experience of this technology in two workshops. In the first workshop, deaf film-makers experimented with creating vibetracks for a movie clip using a professional movie editing software. In the second workshop, trained opera singers san...
Conference Paper
People who drive powered chairs such as scooters and wheelchairs are often excluded from physical play activities because of their mobility differences. Video games that capture body motion such as sports or dancing games also often exclude people with limited mobility. However, combining the advantages of digital environments such as flexible virt...
Article
Full-text available
Gamification has drawn the attention of academics, practitioners and business professionals in domains as diverse as education, information studies, human-computer interaction, and health. As yet, the term remains mired in diverse meanings and contradictory uses, while the concept faces division on its academic worth, underdeveloped theoretical fou...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The past decade has seen the emergence of well-being/quality of life as a strand of inquiry in human factors research that has expanded the field’s reach to matters beyond fit, functionality and usability. This effort has been spearheaded by “hedonomics,” a human factors conceptualization of well-being that reflects the philosophical notion of hedo...
Conference Paper
Signed language interpreter training programs are necessary to support the training of professional signed language interpreters who facilitate the communication between Deaf and hearing people. However, these programs have few tools that provide asynchronous or non-face-to-face means of giving feedback to or communication with learners in the sign...
Article
A novel vibrotactile musical input device called the Vibrochord, which is designed to deliver patterns of vibration to the skin, not to the ear, through the use of a vibrotactile display called the Emoti-Chair, is evaluated using proposed evaluation frameworks. Findings show that the mixture of frameworks used in this study provided valuable insigh...
Article
Full-text available
Over the last decade consumers have witnessed a dramatic increase in the use of low fidelity, discrete vibrotactile feedback to enhance or replace audio stimuli in entertainment systems. However, use of high-resolution continuous vibrotactile displays remains quite uncommon. The Emoti-Chair is a high-resolution continuous vibrotactile display that...
Book
The two-volume set LNCS 8547 and 8548 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs, ICCHP 2014, held in Paris, France, in July 2014. The 132 revised full papers and 55 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 362 submissions. The papers included in t...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Competency models have been widely employed within education, training and development contexts. In particular, medical education programs have become a platform of exploration around innovations in competency-based assessment. Approaches that employ dynamic, flexible models in a social context are now being sought. In this paper, we present the de...
Article
This article discusses the importance of ‘strategic chat time’ for the integration of blind and low vision (B/LV) employees. Strategic chat time refers to social time not related to workplace business such as lunch, breaks, and informal social activities, where employees build relationships and assimilate into the company’s culture. This study exam...
Conference Paper
In the past decade, as the processing power of smartphones has increased, users have started to use them within a business environment, specifically in corporate meetings in exchange for their laptops or tablet computers. The use of smartphones and other mobile devices in meetings may be causing a positive or negative change in the attitudes and be...
Article
Full-text available
Communication difficulties associated with late-stage dementia can make it difficult for care staff in residential environments to get to know people with dementia. This lack of knowledge can have a negative effect on the social environment of residential facilities, which can have a detrimental effect on the health and well-being of the residents...
Article
The conventional approach to audio description (AD) uses third-person narrative, factual delivery style, post-planning and third-party delivery, making it incompatible with inclusive design principles and equitable access to sensory stimuli.This paper discusses Clay & Paper Theatre's alternative AD approach, involving actors, scriptwriters, musicia...
Article
Full-text available
Two experiments investigated deaf individuals' ability to discriminate between same-sex talkers based on vibrotactile stimulation alone. Nineteen participants made same/different judgments on pairs of utterances presented to the lower back through voice coils embedded in a conforming chair. Discrimination of stimuli matched for F0, duration, and pe...
Conference Paper
Auditory music is a universal art form that has spanned millennia. Music provides an insight into the collective culture of a society and acts as a vehicle to transmit shared knowledge that is common to all members of society. People who are deaf, deafened or hard of hearing tend to have a limited access to music and as a result can be excluded fro...
Article
Full-text available
Five experiments investigated the ability to discriminate between musical timbres based on vibrotactile stimulation alone. Participants made same/different judgments on pairs of complex waveforms presented sequentially to the back through voice coils embedded in a conforming chair. Discrimination between cello, piano, and trombone tones matched for...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The Emoti-Chair is a novel technology to enhance entertainment through vibrotactile stimulation. We assessed the experience of this technology in two workshops. In the first workshop, deaf film-makers experimented with creating vibetracks for a movie clip using a professional movie editing software. In the second workshop, trained opera singers san...
Article
Introduction The study presented here evaluated the usability of the audio description software LiveDescribe and explored the acceptance rates of audio description created by amateur describers who used LiveDescribe to facilitate the creation of their descriptions. Methods Twelve amateur describers with little or no previous experience with audio...
Article
Full-text available
Storytelling is an important method of communication at all stages of life. Sharing narratives about lived events and experiences provides topics of conversation and opportunities for connecting with other people. In this article, we apply a conventional model of storytelling to the verbal reminiscences of older people with a dementia diagnosis. Th...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
It can be very difficult to get to know a person with late-stage dementia. This is especially true for staff that work in care homes with little time to spend with each resident and even less to focus on social interaction. This paper presents a software tool that was created to help care staff become more familiar with a person with dementia in a...
Article
The enhanced captioning system was developed using a participatory design methodology to improve speaker identification using avatars. These avatars consisted of the speaker's name and image surrounded by a coloured border matching their clothing. An evaluation was conducted using eye-tracking with viewers who are deaf and hard-or-hearing. The majo...
Conference Paper
SLS:Caption provides captioning functionality for deaf and hearing users to provide captions to video content (including sign language content). Users are able to enter and modify text as well as adjust its font, colour, location and background opacity. An initial user study with hearing users showed that SLS:Caption was easy to learn and use. Howe...
Article
Full-text available
We present a public usability study that provides preliminary results on the effectiveness of a universally designed system that conveys music and other sounds into tactile sensations. The system was displayed at a public science museum as part of a larger multimedia exhibit aimed at presenting a youths' perspective on global warming and the enviro...
Article
Elsewhere, we have demonstrated how the practices and processes associated with the creation of audio description (AD) for television and film violate many of the central tenets of universal design theory (Udo & Fels, 2010, Journal of Engineering Design, 21(2), 1466–1837). However, the scope of our analysis and subsequent discussion extended only t...
Conference Paper
People with dementia who live in care homes can have very little social interaction. Care staff have limited time to spend with each person and communication difficulties can make it difficult to get to know the person with dementia as a person. This paper presents Portrait a software tool to enable care staff to get to know a person with dementia...
Conference Paper
The current method for speaker identification in closed captioning on television is ineffective and difficult in situations with multiple speakers, off-screen speakers, or narration. An enhanced captioning system that uses graphical elements (e.g., avatar and colour), speaker names and caption placement techniques for speaker identification was dev...
Article
To abide by the tenets of universal design theory, the design of a product or service needs not only to consider the inclusion of as many potential users and uses as possible but also to do so from conception. Control over the creation and adaptation of the design should, therefore, fall under the purview of the original designer. Closed captioning...
Article
Audio description (AD) has been introduced as one solution for providing people who are blind or have low vision with access to live theatre, film and television content. However, there is little research to inform the process, user preferences and presentation style. We present a study of a single live audio-described performance of Hart House The...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In this abstract, we present the Emoti-Chair, a sensory substitution system that brings a high resolution audio-tactile version of music to the body. The system can be used to improve music accessibility for deaf or hard of hearing people, while offering everyone the chance to experience sounds as tactile sensations. The model human cochlea (MHC) i...
Article
This paper presents a process and its analysis for live audio description of a fashion show that contained only music and no dialogue. The findings of this work suggest that using a content expert with a process that combines conventional audio-description techniques with colour commentary techniques to allow emotion and excitement, as well as desc...
Article
In this paper we demonstrate how universal design theory and the research available on museum‐based touch tours can be used to develop a touch tour for blind and low‐vision theatregoers. We discuss these theoretical and practical approaches with reference to data collected and experience gained from the creation and execution of a touch tour for Ha...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
We present an experiment designed to reveal characteristics of a tactile display that presents vibrations representing music to the back of the body. Based on the model human cochlea, a sensory substitution system aimed at translating music into vibrations, we are investigating the use of larger contactor sizes (over 10 mm in diameter) as an effect...
Conference Paper
The Emoti-Chair is a new universal design for a multimodal entertainment chair to create a tactile entertainment experience for accompanying audio/visual presentations. We presented the Emoti-Chair as part of an exhibit at a public science museum focusing on children's perspectives on global warming and energy use. We asked museum-goers who experie...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The information and entertainment provided by music is not accessible to all members of the society in which it is shared. Deaf, deafened, and hard of hearing music consumers may need more information to better understand the emotions conveyed by music. The paper reports on a study investigating one possible approach - music visualization.
Conference Paper
Over the last 30 years, the deaf and hard of hearing communities have relied on closed captioning for access to television content. However, closed captioning provides limited access to non-speech audio such as music, sound effects and speech prosody. Music in closed captions is often represented by only its title and/or a music note symbol, provid...
Article
A study was conducted to investigate aspects of music that were perceived through vibration. The first experiment used the method of limits to measure ability to discriminate the frequency of vibrotactile stimuli across a wide range of frequencies common to music. Investigations revealed that the skin needed to have some degree of frequency discrim...
Conference Paper
Captioning is the main method for accessing television and film content by people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. One major difficulty consistently identified by the community is that of knowing who is speaking particularly for an off screen narrator. A captioning system was created using a participatory design method to improve speaker identifica...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The Graphical user interface has traditionally supported personal productivity, efficiency, and usability. With computer supported cooperative work, the focus has been on typical people, doing typical work in a highly ra- tional model of interaction. Recent trends towards mobility, and emotional and universal design are extending the user interface...
Conference Paper
Recent advances in web technologies and services have expanded the possibility of having a truly multimedia, interactive web experience for many users. It also means that video based content is not just possible but affordable. Online video-based sign language content is now much more prolific. However, most of the interactive functions remain text...
Article
Full-text available
We present a model human cochlea (MHC), a sensory substitution technique and system that translates auditory information into vibrotactile stimuli using an ambient, tactile display. The model is used in the current study to translate music into discrete vibration signals displayed along the back of the body using a chair form factor. Voice coils fa...
Article
In this paper, we will provide a summary of conventional and alternative AD practices. We will discuss a case account of an alternative AD strategy that was prepared for a live production of Hamlet using the subjective, emotional style proposed by Fels, Udo, Diamond & Diamond (2006a and b) and used by Udo & Fels (in press).
Article
Full-text available
As the cost of videoconferencing technology decreases, and its availability increases, children have greater opportunities to explore the use of this medium within their own classroom environments. Some of the benefits of videoconferencing within the educational setting include access to classes not offered at their school, to off-site teachers wit...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The model human cochlea (MHC) is a sensory substitution technique for presenting music as multiple discrete channels of vibrotactile stimuli. The MHC prototype was introduced to a group of deaf senior citizens at a community centre, where they could try the chair, and provide us with feedback about their experience. Preliminary results from this wo...
Article
In this paper, we discuss our experience of facilitating the development, creation and execution of audio description for an elementary school production of Fiddler on the Roof by three grade eight students. The students were supervised by the production's director, their drama teacher, and assisted by the authors. An actor with experience describi...
Conference Paper
Television programs and films include emotional content which is intended to be captured and interpreted by the viewer. Auditory content such as sound effects, mood music, and vocal intonation cannot be perceived by those in the audience who cannot hear. The tone of voice used to communicate sarcasm is one such type of content. While captioning is...
Conference Paper
Music in captioning is often represented by only its title and/or a music note. This representation provides little to no information of the intended effect or emotion of the music. In this paper, we present a software tool that was created to enable users to mark emotions in a script or lyrics and then render those marks into animated text for dis...
Article
Closed captioning has suffered from a lack of innovation since its inception in the early 1970s. However, television and film technologies and user preferences have changed dramatically. Sound from music, sound effects, and speech prosody are essentially missing from current closed captions. We used animated text to represent emotions contained in...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
We present a Model Human Cochlea (MHC): a sensory substitution technique for creating a crossmodal audio-touch display. This research is aimed at designing a chair-based interface to support deaf and hard of hearing users in experiencing musical content associated with film, and seeks to develop this multisensory crossmodal display as a framework f...