Meeting the Needs of Visually Impaired People Living in Lifetime Homes

ABSTRACT

This article explores perceptions on the suitability and effectiveness of Lifetime Homes standards (LTHS) for those with visual impairment in Northern Ireland. LTHS are a series of mandatory United Kingdom public-sector housing design interventions, providing a model for ensuring accessible and adaptable homes throughout an occupant's life span. An aging demographic with increasing incidence of diabetes has led to rising numbers of elderly, visually impaired people wanting to remain in their homes for longer. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 key stakeholders and thematically analyzed. Although findings show that employing LTHS offers benefits to visually impaired residents, shortcomings were also identified. Evidence indicates a need for policy makers, health-care professionals, and housing associations to modify practices to better meet the housing needs of visually impaired people. Findings may also be applicable to those with other impairments and disabilities in relation to housing for elderly residents.     

Environmental social science: human–environment interactions and sustainability

Visual methods with children have gained interest as social researchers search for participatory methods that align with the current conceptualisation of children as social agents. This paper describes the reflections and experiences of using the home movie as an innovative vehicle allowing access to children’s everyday life. This method was adapted and used to encourage high levels of child-led participation and minimise researcher input. This paper explores practical and methodological strengths, challenges, and ethical questions arising from the production of home movies by the children and suggests that the home movie is an acceptable means for generating insight into children’s perspectives and to produce and reflect visual representations of children’s social worlds.     

Exploring provocation as a research method in the social sciences

Abstract

This paper explores provocation as an approach towards social science research. While routinely used in natural science and arts research, this paper argues provocation might enable the social science researcher to initiate critical reflection amongst participants on issues that are often otherwise overlooked, obscured or accepted as naturalised practice. By assuming the role of provocateur, stimulator and/or agitator, the social science researcher can interrupt the flow of everyday life in order to illuminate and draw attention to complex social issues. Using research interventions that embrace, rather than deny, the socially constructed nature of the research process, provocation provides an alternative to largely non-obtrusive methods favoured in much social science research. This paper concludes by outlining the practical and methodological issues associated with this approach – in particular the complicated ethics of provoking reflection on topics that might not have otherwise come to the participant’s attention.     

Mandalas as a visual research method for understanding primary care for depression

Depression is a complex problem, commonly but not always successfully managed in primary care. We know relatively little about the system of primary care for depression particularly at the level of organisations. In this paper, we describe the use of mandalas as a visual data collection method within an in-depth programme of participatory action research undertaken in six primary care organisations in Victoria, Australia. We draw on mandala images, selected and discussed by 49 multidisciplinary primary health care professionals and demonstrate how they can be employed as an effective graphic elicitation method. We conclude that mandalas offer an innovative approach for qualitative data collection for two reasons. First, they can engage busy research participants in a reflective space. Second, using the mandalas as an elicitation method generates meaningful data: it provides new insights, reveals unrecognised aspects of practice, generates new learning, gives physical form to tacit processes and enables complex information to become accessible; all within short timeframes.     

试论电影的深度空间观念

人类获得视觉深度的途径主要有四种,但只有以双目方式才能获得统一的视觉深度观念。电影具有独特的深度空间观念。电影的深度空间观念形成机制非常复杂,它是人的视觉深度、影像的运动和声音等因素共同作用的结果,并与人的相应心理幻觉和后天观影经验有关。正是因为观念的介入,电影才成为一种艺术,具有文化的意义。     

风景写生研究

风景写生是写生绘画门类之一,学习它能更全面地掌握绘画的表现技巧。古今中外的许多创作都以风景写生为基本素材,同时,这种写生绘画本身也可以独立成为一种完整的绘画形式,因此,必须掌握这一形式语言,从而提高绘画作品的表现力与审美水平。     

经营者长期激励机制构建的思维模式

建立并完善经营者长期激励机制,对于解决两权分离所带来的委托代理关系问题,完善现代公司制企业制度具有重要意义。本文主要以整合经营者与股东的目标为切入点,着重阐述了构建经营者长期激励机制的思维模式,进而使经营者长期激励机制日趋完善。     

英汉语视觉词汇的提取与审美——兼论英语品牌的汉译

文字是一种视觉符号,具有较强的表意功能和美学功能。通过对英汉语词汇的视觉审美心理在能指与所指、字形视角、信息视角等方面的比较,阐述英汉语视觉词汇的词义提取差异对英语品牌的汉译审美心理的影响与启示。     

现代室内壁饰艺术审美意趣论

现代室内壁饰可以呈现出不同的视觉形式美、色彩情感美、材料肌理美,又因与环境高度协调而表现出环境和谐美。现代壁饰在某种程度上为室内环境起到了缓冲作用,拓宽了室内的空间视野,增强了居室环境的美感因素。由于这种艺术审美形式上含有较强的表现性,给欣赏者带来了无穷的趣味性。     

关于视觉障碍者识别三类出口标志能力的试验报告

试验表明，有视觉障碍者对三类出口标志的识别能力与无视觉障碍者之间存在很大差距。因此，在消防安全工程设计中，必须将视觉障碍者的特殊需要包含在建筑的特性化设计理念中。