Crowdsourcing subjective fashion advice using vizwiz: Challenges and opportunities

Michele A. Burton, Erin Brady, Robin Brewer, Callie Neylan, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Amy Hurst

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Fashion is a language. How we dress signals to others who we are and how we want to be perceived. However, this language is primarily visual, making it inaccessible to people with vision impairments. Someone who is low-vision or completely blind cannot see what others are wearing or readily know what constitutes the norms and extremes of fashion, but most everyone they encounter can see and judgetheir fashion choices. We describe our findings of a diary study with people with vision impairments that revealed the many accessibility barriers fashion presents, and how an online survey revealed that clothing decisions are often made collaboratively, regardless of visual ability. Based on these findings, we identified a need for a collaborative and real-time environment for fashion advice. We have tested the feasibility of providing this advice through crowdsourcing using VizWiz, a mobile phone application where participants receive nearly real-time answers to visual questions. Our pilot study results show that this application has the potential to address a great need within the blind community, but remaining challenges include improving photo capture and assembling a set of crowd workers with the requisite expertise. More broadly our research highlights the feasibility of using crowdsourcing for subjective, opinion-based advice.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationASSETS'12 - Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility
Pages135-142
Number of pages8
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012
Event14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, ASSETS 2012 - Boulder, CO, United States
Duration: Oct 22 2012Oct 24 2012

Publication series

NameASSETS'12 - Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

Conference

Conference14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, ASSETS 2012
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityBoulder, CO
Period10/22/1210/24/12

Keywords

  • Blind Users
  • Crowdsourcing
  • Fashion

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

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