Situational visual impairments on mobile devices - modeling the effects of bright outdoor environments
Authors: 
Denis Nikitenko, Jordan Evans, 
David R. Flatla, Thomas Driscoll, Graham Quinlan, Kyle LukaszekAuthors Info & Claims
Article No.: 1, Pages 1 - 10
Abstract
Mobile device users frequently experience Situational Visual Impairments (SVIs) when viewing screen content in bright outdoor environments. Designers could help alleviate SVIs if they had design tools that illustrated the effects that bright outdoor environments have on screen content. However, the exact nature of the underlying factors that lead to bright environment SVIs is poorly understood. To address this, we build on previous work by exploring the effects of bright environmental lighting on display content visibility using in-lab studies. In particular, we measured the differentiability of achromatic colours under a variety of realistic screen content and environmental brightnesses. Surprisingly, we found that environmental brightness makes a significant but relatively small contribution to reducing screen content visibility, with screen content brightness having a larger effect. As such, we conclude that non-glare ambient light reflecting off a screen has little influence on the visibility of that screen’s content, and make recommendations for future research to help map the true factors underlying SVIs.
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- Situational visual impairments on mobile devices - modeling the effects of bright outdoor environments
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June 2024
437 pages
ISBN:9798400718281
DOI:10.1145/3670947
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Published: 21 September 2024
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