Browsing by Author "Bhat, Dhanashree"

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    CAREERS: A Career Guidance Tool for Student Recruiting
    (Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2016-04-08) Bhat, Dhanashree; Thirumala Sreenivasa, Vedantha Kartheek; Comer, Robert Skipworth
    The Careers Application for iOS devices helps the School of Informatics and Computing (SOIC) Student Outreach Department provide direction to current high school students for Bachelor's Degree programs and courses offered through SOIC. With the help of this application, the students can get suggestions about the different program majors available at SOIC that might be suitable for their profile. The app asks the students a series of multiple choice questions. The students select answers as per their interests. Depending on the students' responses, the application calculates suitable degree and program matches, and provides these as suggestions to the student. In addition, potential salary expectations for graduates from these programs is provided. The app is a combination of the mobile application and a server-based web application. Students create an account using an e-mail address, and log in. A set of eight questions are selected at random from a database, and displayed in multiple choice format. The student's answers are recorded on the device and sent to the server application for storing and processing. An algorithm evaluates the student's interests on dimensions that correspond to the various programs offered through SOIC, and responds with a ranked list, which includes the program name, degree offered, and expected salary levels for graduates in that program. Since the questions are randomly selected, students can try the app repeatedly. Student Outreach personnel will begin using the app during the coming months, and expect to use it to generate interest among high school students, as well as learn more about the interests of incoming students from their responses.
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    Fast and Discreet access to web services for the Blind through Screenless Browsing
    (Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2016-04-08) Bolchini, Davide; Abhishek Dara, Joe; Bhat, Dhanashree; Pachhapukur, Shilpa; Chamboneth, Yhareli
    Web services on our smartphones have become an integral part of our daily lives. Services like Google Maps and Yelp have helped us explore the world better. However, the blind and visually impaired (BVI) spend unnecessary cognitive and mechanical effort navigating complex menus displayed on a mobile device before they can locate and access the content of their interest. More direct access may happen via voice-based services (e.g., S iri ), but at the cost of breaking privacy and social boundaries. To combat this issue, we propose Screenless Browsing : combining hand gesture recognition with aural navigation patterns that enable the BVI to quickly navigate aural menus through nimble, discrete hand movements. We propose to decouple the friction-prone mechanical interaction with a mobile display from the navigation experience. We demonstrate our approach by: (1) Introducing novel aural browsing menus that combine web content with binary splitting, dynamic sorting and playlists to accelerate navigation across collections; (2) Mapping aural menu navigation to the robust and simple vocabulary of hand movements enabled by M yo , an off-the-shelf muscle-controlled armband; (3) Reify our approach by iteratively prototyping Screenless Browsing of mobile applications for the BVI; (4) Conduct a user study to assess the limits and potential of our approach with participants from the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ISBVI). We believe that the ability to access web services on the move without taking the phone out of the pocket will empower the BVI to navigate and explore places effectively. Our work exemplifies a novel way to to reduce unwanted friction with the device and maximize the content experience for the BVI.