Abstract
Researchers and designers are increasingly advocating wider and fairer participation in recycling. However, many people are still excluded from this meaningful social participation. For example, visually impaired persons (VIPs) still face many barriers to participating in recycling independently. Since 2015, a series of studies has been conducted to explore the possibility of VIPs participating in recycling. Through a case study of designing recycling facilities for VIPs, this paper explores and discusses the difficulties and limitations that the visually impaired experience in participating in recycling, despite technological advancements that claim to help people with disabilities. It also identifies some directions for researchers and designers for future studies and professional practice.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) for its research fund support for the study. The authors also acknowledge partial support from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council’s Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme (RGC 35000316) during the data collection and the preparation of this paper. The Eric C. Yim Endowed Professorship provided financial support for the data analysis. The authors also thank the visually impaired participants from the Hong Kong Blind Union, PolyU, and other NGOs and social service organizations for the visually impaired.
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Siu, K.W.M., Lo, C.H., Wong, Y.L. (2020). Inclusive Design for Recycling Facilities: Public Participation Equity for the Visually Impaired. In: Ahram, T., Karwowski, W., Pickl, S., Taiar, R. (eds) Human Systems Engineering and Design II. IHSED 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1026. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27928-8_47
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