Wearable colour identification aids

The PhD student will be resident within Dr Flatla’s DAPRlab group within the Queen Mother Building for the duration of studies, but supervisory responsibility will be fully shared between Dr Flatla and Dr Lim. For stage 1 (refinement), Dr Lim will take the lead supervisory role (given his strong background in participatory design) and Dr Flatla will take a secondary supervisory role. For stage 2 (development), Dr Flatla will take the lead supervisory role (given his experience developing colour identification systems). For stage 3 (evaluation), supervision will be shared between Dr Flatla and Dr Lim as Dr Flatla has greater expertise in quantitative in-lab evaluation techniques, whereas Dr Lim has greater expertise in qualitative in-the-wild evaluation techniques.

Summary

Colour vision is a vital component of day-to-day living; its loss can severely limit a person’s livelihood (e.g., airplane pilots, electricians, dentists, and visual artists all re- quire accurate colour vision), threaten health and safety (e.g., not spotting sunburns and rashes, misidentifying medication), make food preparation difficult (e.g., undercooking meat, buying overripe fruit, detecting mouldiness), and even challenge someone’s social acceptability (e.g., by inhibiting clothing coordination and home decorating) [1].

To help address the limitations imposed by ICV, we developed three new tools that help identify colours in computer environments (via a desktop application) and in the real world (via a mobile application). In a lab-based user study with 22 participants (11 with ICV), all three tools improved colour identification to nearly 100% and two of our tools were four times faster than existing tools [2].



In this project, you will take our tools to the next level by:

Refinement: The underlying design space for our tools has not been fully explored. In this stage, you will develop a design space for mapping colour information to other non-colour visual representations (e.g., textures, patterns), informed by existing literature, discussions with people who have ICV, and in-lab user studies.
Development: Using the design space you developed in the refinement stage, you will then implement the most promising techniques on a wearable augmented-reality platform (e.g., Microsoft HoloLens, Epson Moverio BT-200). To aid this develop- ment process, you will frequently consult with people who have ICV.
Evaluation: Once developed, you will evaluate your techniques in both in-lab and in-the-wild studies with people who have ICV. You will employ tasks aligned with the four fundamental uses of colour identified in [1] in the in-lab studies. Your in-the-wild studies will focus on the learnability and usability of your techniques.
References

[1] Cole, B.L. (2004). The Handicap of Abnormal Colour Vision. Clinical and Exper-imental Optometry, 87(4-5):258–275, July.

[2] Flatla, D.R., Andrade, A., Teviotdale, R., Knowles, D. and Stewart, C. (2015) ColourID: Improving Colour Identification for People with Impaired Colour Vision. Pro- ceedings of CHI 2015: The 33rd International Conference on Human Factors in Com- puting Systems, 3543–3552.

Your application must include the following documents (ideally sent as a single file):
• A cover letter stating:
o The project(s) you are interested in (3 maximum) in order of preference
o Why your background makes you suitable for the role
o Why the particular projects are of interest to you.
o A short summary of your final year or MSc project
• A CV
• Names and contact details of two referees

These should be sent to Mrs Shirley Fox ([Email Address Removed]) by the 25th March 2016.

Informal enquiries can be directed to the project supervisor or to Dr David McGloin ([Email Address Removed])

Evaluation and Criteria Guidance

• Candidates should have a 2:1 or above degree, or an appropriate MSc, in a subject relevant to the project under consideration
• In stage 1 applications will be assessed on the quality of the candidates, which will encapsulate academic ability, candidate motivation, writing skills, quality of references and experience. These will be assessed via the paper application.
• A further evaluation stage will be carried out for applicants who pass stage 1, which will incorporate an interview/visit to Dundee.
• Applicants will be judged in competition with students applying for other available projects.