Chandrika Jayant

Email: shani dot jayant at gmail dot com

I just received my Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Washington, advised by Richard Ladner. I helped create and have been a part of the MobileAccessibility Project Team. I am interested in mobile access technology for blind, low-vision, and deaf-blind users. I have worked on optical character recognition, automated tactile graphics production using machine learning (see: Tactile Graphics Project) as well as touch screen and audio technology for education. We have just received a grant from the Department of Education to work on Braille games on mobile phones for blind and low-vision children, working with them along with their parents and teachers (see: VBraille Site).

Currently, I spend most of my time working on mainstream phone-based applications to assist in everyday tasks, using phone sensors, computer vision, and both human and automated web services. My focus is on helping blind people use cameras to find out information about their environment, whether it be for reading text, scanning barcodes, finding objects, or taking photographs of loved ones. Any blind, low-vision, or deaf-blind people who are interested in participating in this research either remotely or locally in Seattle should contact me for more information. Though my dissertation work has been completed, I am still working on putting out the accessible portrait framing mobile camera apps on the Android and iPhone marketplace this year.

Though I have been working with the blind community as my user base, by researching these interaction techniques we can create more novel and interesting applications for the larger community through universal design and customization on mainstream mobile devices and programmable cameras. My doctoral research in the context of users with disabilities has provided me with broad general insights for the next generation of multimodal communications and computing.

I am also interested in technology and disability in the developing world. I am interested in looking at the ways that developing world technology and accessibility technology can influence one another. I helped organize a workshop which was held at UW October 2009 gathering together experts in policy, technology, design, and social and economic issues. Joyojeet Pal and his colleagues are doing exciting work in this field.

Download my CV: doc or pdf.

Paper 'Supporting Blind Photography' got accepted to ASSETS! Hope to see you in Scotland end of October!

Steps of PortraitFramer application. a) Photo taken (background removed for clarity). b) Faces found. c) If there are faces, PortraitFramer announces the number of faces, and vibrates where those faces are on the touchscreen while also show ing them as high contrast circles. When each face circle is touched, it plays a short, distinct pitch. In struction mode can be turned on to provide direc tional instructions. The user can accept this photo and save it, or try again, by swiping left or right respectively.

VizWiz gets UIST 2010 Best Paper Award!

UW MobileAccessibility projects in the New York Times! Amazing Innovation: Mobile Apps for the Disabled.

Publications:

Chandrika Jayant, Hanjie Ji, Samuel White and Jeffrey P. Bigham. Supporting Blind Photography. ASSETS 2011. To Appear. pdf

Chandrika Jayant, Christine Acuario, William Johnson, Janet Hollier and Richard Ladner. V-Braille: Haptic Braille Perception using a Touch-screen and Vibration on Mobile Phones. ASSETS 2010 Poster.

Jeffrey P. Bigham, Chandrika Jayant, Hanjie Ji, Greg Little, Andrew Miller, Robert C. Miller, Robin Miller, Aubrey Tatrowicz, Brandyn White, Samuel White and Tom Yeh. VizWiz: Nearly Real-time Answers to Visual Questions. In Proceedings of the 23nd Annual ACM Symposium on User interface Software and Technology. UIST '10, New York, NY, October 3-6, 2010, 333-342. pdf

Jeffrey Bigham, Chandrika Jayant, Andrew Miller, Brandyn White and Tom Yeh. . VizWiz::LocateIt - Enabling Blind People to Locate Objects in Their Environment.In Proceedings of Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW), 2010 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. CVPR '10, San Francisco, CA, June 13-18, 2010, 65-72.pdf

Chandrika Jayant. MobileAccessibility: Camera Focalization for Blind and Low-Vision Users on the Go. SIGACCESS Accessible Computing, Issue 96, January 2010, 37-40. pdf

Shaun Kane, Chandrika Jayant, Jacob Wobbrock, Richard Ladner: Freedom to roam: A study of mobile device adoption and accessibility for people with visual and motor disabilities. In Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, ASSETS '09, Pittsburgh, PA, October 26-28, 2009, 115-122.pdf

Chandrika Jayant, Matthew Renzelmann, Dana Wen, Satria Krisnandi, Richard E. Ladner, Dan Comden: Automated Tactile Graphics Translation: In The Field. In Proceedings of the Ninth International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, ASSETS '07, Tempe, AZ, October 14-17, 2007, 75-82. pdf

A study participant analyzing the faces on a photograph she just took using PortraitFramer. a study participant using a camera application to find an object in a room a blind student and myself reading a tactile graphic

Outreach:

SURP (Summer Undergraduate Research Program) Mentor, July-September 2010
National Federation of the Blind Junior Science Academy, Computer Science Session Co-Leader, July 2010
National Federation of the Blind Youth Slam, IM Chatbots Session Leader, July 2009
Training Workshop for Automated Tactile Graphics Production at the National Braille Association Professional Development Conference, Lead Presenter, April 2007
Vertical Mentoring Workshop for the Blind in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, Volunteer, July 2006
Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technologies Workshop, Volunteer, Summer 2006
Workshop at Seattle Horizons Science & Technology Conference for Middle School Girls, Leader, Spring 2005

Other Papers:

Chandrika Jayant: A Survey of Math Accessibility For Blind Persons and An Investigation on Text/Math Separation. 2006. pdf

Chandrika Jayant, T. Scott Saponas: MarioFit: Exercise Through Mobile Entertainment. 2005. pdf

Chandrika Jayant, Jessica K. Miller, Yael F. Schwartzman: Engaging and Informing Citizens About Land Use and Transportation Ballot Measures with Urban Simulation Data. 2005. doc

Chandrika Jayant, Ethan Katz-Bassett: Toward Better Geolocation: Improving Internet Distance Estimates Using Route Traces. 2004. pdf

Miscellaneous:

turkish jazz record cover of monkey tangled up in tape next to a reel to reel

In my "spare time" i am a weekly DJ on KEXP 90.3FM (kexp.org) in Seattle and spin around town. Send me music! You can also find my music blog here. I also play piano and read as many books as I can get my hands on (See: Goodreads).

cjayant@cs.washington.edu