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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">The below research participant solicitation is being provided for informational purposes only. The National Federation of the Blind has no involvement in this research, but we
believe that it may contribute to our research mission.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">Invitation to Participate in Research on Programming Workspace Accessibility for Blind Individuals
<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:9.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:34.0pt;line-height:200%">
<span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">A research team
</span><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">composed<span style="color:black"> of blind and sighted scholars at the Unive</span>rsity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is
<span style="color:black">conducting</span> exploratory <span style="color:black">
research on</span> blind individuals’ interactions with accessible programming workspaces
<span style="color:black">and</span> their approach towards comprehending and navigating code. In this context, an individual’s level of visual impairment is based on The U.S. legal definition of blindness: visual acuity of not greater than 20/200 in the better
eye with correction or a field not subtending an angle greater than 20 degrees.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:9.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:34.0pt;line-height:200%">
<span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">The expected value of this study is that we will get a better sense of the following topics based on blind</span><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">
programmers; experiences<span style="color:black">, which will in turn scientifically highlight the existing</span> accessibility of programming workspaces and the opportunities to improve them to support blind programmers:<span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:24.0pt;text-indent:-24.0pt;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">•<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">The common accessibility issues of blind programmers<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:24.0pt;text-indent:-24.0pt;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">•<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">The patterns of interaction between blind programmers and the accessibility tools used to code<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:24.0pt;text-indent:-24.0pt;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo1">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">•<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">The level of navigability, glanceability, alertability, and discoverability the popular accessible programming workspaces have<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:24.0pt"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:9.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:200%">
<span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> Participants’ personal information and data such as name, email, age, etc. collected from the interview will be systematically removed from the final results used to conduct
analysis in order to make sure researchers will not disclose any of your personal information without your permission as well as skew the analysis.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:9.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">
<span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">The research team would like to invite blind individuals to participate in an online interview consisting of two sections: a questionnaire regarding past coding experience and an
interactive coding session. This will allow researchers to further investigate how blind programmers code and interact with technologies and tools.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:9.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%">
<span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Participants will receive a $20 Amazon gift card upon completing the one-hour interview and coding activity. Eligible participants for the online interview are those:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:24.0pt;text-indent:-24.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">•<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">self-identifying themselves as an individual who is blind;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:24.0pt;text-indent:-24.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">•<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">age 18 or older;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:24.0pt;text-indent:-24.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">•<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">having any level of programming experience;<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:24.0pt;text-indent:-24.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">•<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">having familiarity with Python, Java, C++ or C programming languages<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:10.0pt;margin-left:24.0pt;text-indent:-24.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo2">
<![if !supportLists]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">•<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman"">
</span></span></span><![endif]><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">having experience with screen readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, ORCA, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:24.0pt"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:9.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:34.0pt;line-height:200%">
<span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">If you are interested in participating, or have a question, please contact our research team</span><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">
at <a href="mailto:rshah257@illinois.edu">rshah257@illinois.edu</a><span style="color:black">. Please pass on this information to other suitable candidates who you think may be interested.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:9.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:34.0pt;line-height:200%">
<span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">Sincerely,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:9.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-indent:34.0pt;line-height:200%">
<span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black">JooYoung Seo (PI)</span><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">, Riya Shah, Khushi Jain, and Si Chen<span style="color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:9.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:200%">
<span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">Lou Ann Blake, J.D.</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Director of Research Programs, Blindness Initiatives<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, MD 21230<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">410-659-9314, extension 2221 |
<a href="mailto:lblake@nfb.org"><span style="color:windowtext">lblake@nfb.org</span></a>
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://nfb.org/"><span style="color:#0563C1;text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="210" height="76" style="width:2.1875in;height:.7916in" id="_x0000_i1028" src="https://nfb.org/images/nfb/images/email/2/nfblogo.png" alt="National Federation of the Blind"></span></a><span style="color:#1F497D"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D"> </span>
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/nationalfederationoftheblind"><span style="color:#0563C1;text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="24" height="24" style="width:.25in;height:.25in" id="_x0000_i1027" src="https://nfb.org/images/nfb/images/email/2/facebook.png" alt="Facebook"></span></a><span style="color:#1F497D"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/NFB_Voice"><span style="color:#0563C1;text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="24" height="24" style="width:.25in;height:.25in" id="_x0000_i1026" src="https://nfb.org/images/nfb/images/email/2/twitter.png" alt="Twitter"></span></a><span style="color:#1F497D"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/NationsBlind"><span style="color:#0563C1;text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="24" height="24" style="width:.25in;height:.25in" id="_x0000_i1025" src="https://nfb.org/images/nfb/images/email/2/youtube.png" alt="Youtube"></span></a><span style="color:#1F497D"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt">The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and friends who believe in the hopes and dreams of the nation’s blind. Every day we work together to help blind people live the lives they want.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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