Visually handicapped and sighted personnel at a workplace: Computerization of information handling

摘要

This report is a final study in a project aimed at facilitating communication between sighted and visually handicapped office personnel. The report is based on the personnel's evaluations of computerization in a multimedia office environment, 2 12 years after the installation of the first systems. The systems included word processing on personal computers and conversion of text to different media (viz., speech synthesis and braille).Sight status and computer access at work accounted for the major differences in assessments.The visually impaired were more critical about various aspects of the project, at the same time as they thought it had improved the communication conditions to some extent.This judgment should be contrasted to the visually impaireds' lower rating of their own work efficiency as a result of the computerization project, compared to the sighted personnel.The visually impaired had high expectations that were not fulfilled in all respects. In particular, the findings point to the necessity of concentrating on the needs of the visually impaired from the beginning, when introducing changes of the kind studied in the present project.