Benner, Jessica
(2017)
Ontology of accessibility in the context of wayfinding for people with disabilities.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
This is the latest version of this item.
Abstract
There is evidence that objects in and of the built environment function as barriers or facilitators to accessibility for people with disabilities. Although there are many existing sources of information about accessibility, they often lack clear criteria to describe accessibility, explanations of barriers and facilitators to mobility, and coverage of multiple physical environments. Researchers have argued that wayfinding services (e.g., Google Maps) can help people with disabilities prepare to travel through the built environment, yet current wayfinding services include little to no information about accessibility. This dissertation aims to study accessibility, in the context of wayfinding, in indoor, outdoor and transitional environments for people who travel in wheelchairs and people with low to no vision. To this end, a qualitative ontological analysis of multiple sources of information regarding accessibility was conducted including analyses of important categories associated with accessible wayfinding; different information providers’ views on accessibility; and specific barriers and facilitators to accessibility. The results indicate that (1) people with low to no vision and people who travel in wheelchairs have different core wayfinding information needs, (2) a gap exists between the information people with disabilities and researchers provide on accessibility and that provided by standard guidelines, and (3) conceptualizing accessibility requires capturing actions performed by people with disabilities during every day travel along with characteristics of environmental objects. The resulting ontology could be leveraged to generate new criteria describing accessibility, new routing algorithms, or to attach provenance to existing accessibility criteria. The findings have implications for people who design wayfinding services and collaborative maps and people collaboratively collecting data on the accessibility of specific places.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
21 September 2017 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
4 April 2017 |
| Approval Date: |
21 September 2017 |
| Submission Date: |
31 July 2017 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
734 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
School of Information Sciences > Library and Information Science |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
physical accessibility, wayfinding, qualitative content analysis, ontology |
| Date Deposited: |
21 Sep 2017 18:32 |
| Last Modified: |
21 Sep 2017 18:32 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/33172 |
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Ontology of accessibility in the context of wayfinding for people with disabilities. (deposited 21 Sep 2017 18:32)
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