Research & Insights

Oct. 10, 2020 (10.4.2020–10.10.2020)

After establishing context with secondary research from last week, we focused on primary research this week. We reached out to our stakeholders, the general Pittsburgh community and visual impairment experts, to collect data via surveys and interviews in order to synthesize all of our findings into insights. In addition to our primary research, we visited Uptown in order to experience the neighborhood and see where our problem solution will impact.

Reaching Out to Experts

We reached out to experts with extensive knowledge of visual disabilities in order to better understand what people with visual disabilities need and what message they wish to convey to sighted people.

Below is a list of people we have reached out to:

• Gretchen Mendoza
• Rebecca Fater, head of Marketing at Perkins School for the Blind
• Catherine Getchel, Director Office of Disability Resources
• Holly Tuke, Disability and Lifestyle Blogger
• Holly Stant, Team Lead for the Low Vision Occupational Therapy Services at the UPMC Eye Center

10/10 update: we have heard back from most of them and have upcoming interviews scheduled with them over the course of the next two weeks

Discovering the current level of knowledge in the Pittsburgh community

Our aim with this project is to encourage sighted people, specifically in the Pittsburgh community, to develop a sense of understanding and empathy for people with visual impairments in order to promote inclusive day-to-day experiences. To understand sighted people’s current level of understanding, biases, and perceptions of people with visual disabilities, we distributed a google survey to the Pittsburgh community via Nextdoor and Reddit.

Holly Stant Interview

Holly Stant is the Team Lead for Low Vision Occupational Therapy at UPMC eye center and answered some of the larger questions our class had.

Key Insights:

Relatives/friends of BLV patients when patient is first diagnosed:

• Family and friends who don’t know anything tend to do too much and can end up taking away patient independence and autonomy
• Gives people (family members) information handouts through emails (Lack of engagement, Not accessible by most, Information overload)
• Experiential learning for employees and family members — wear central vision and peripheral vision goggles, wayfinding then discussion, barriers to function

Debunking assumptions sighted people have of people with visual impairments:

• Most people that have visual impairments do not use a white cane
• People can’t tell if you have vision loss unless they see the white cane (people assume you’re being rude, inconsiderate, in a hurry)
• People who used white canes included less than 10% of her patients and is actually used for orientation and mobility purposes (patients don’t have to be totally NLP to use it)
• Elderly fear that using a white cane would make them a target
• Not very many people use guide dogs (in the past year, she only saw one or two) and those that do need to be cane-trained; if something happens to the dog, they need a backup

Synthesizing

After leaving our survey up for a few days, we were able to get 28 participants. The results of our initial survey confirmed our initial hypothesis:

Most sighted people have a low level of knowledge (of visual disabilities) based off of assumptions and preconceptions, which can lead to community mismatches for people with visual impairments

Insight #1: Sighted people who had higher levels of knowledge were able to recognize their bias when they had close, personal connections or were able to observe people with visual disabilities

Insight #2: Sighted people are curious about visual disabilities and want to be able to help and understand people with visual impairments — but they don’t know where to start

Insight #3: Sighted people with low levels of knowledge had sentiments that ranged from negative to positive, all of which were problematic

We analyzed and plotted key group’s sentiments across a spectrum from negative to positive based on the amount of knowledge they have:

• Negative sentiments + Low knowledge included groups that view people with visual impairments as pitiful and in need if assistance and help
• Neutral sentiments included people who were passive and generally uncaring, with thoughts including “it does not affect me”
• Positive sentiments + Low knowledge was also problematic, because they perceived those with disabilities to be “inspirational” because of their impairments (reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K9Gg164Bsw)

After plotting our research results, we starred the plot point for our problem solution (Positive sentiments + High knowledge) How can we create an engaging and positive knowledge space in order to raise people’s level of understanding and empathy of visual disabilities for a more inclusive community?

What does the Pittsburgh community mean to people, and what do they want the community to become?

Once we’ve established the community’s general thoughts, sentiment, and current level of knowledge of people with visual disabilities, we wanted to understand what community means to the city of Pittsburgh. Many areas of Pittsburgh are changing and developing, and with those changes comes a growing community of people. What kind of community do people want to see?

Inspired by Giorgia Lupi’s “Dear New York”, our team decided to create a digital forum for people to share what the Pittsburgh community means to them and what kind of community they want to see it become. We also gave them the option to sign their name and to let us know how long they have lived in Pittsburgh.

Visiting Uptown :)

After sending out our forum questionnaire, we decided to take a visit to Uptown to experience the community we want to work with. So we donned our masks and visited the developing neighborhood.