Network 1000: Surveying the changing needs and lifestyles of 1000 visually impaired people - Indicative results from generative interviews

Network 1000 is a panel survey aimed at surveying the changing needs and circumstances of people with a visual impairment. The project is committed to participant involvement that is developing collaborative and inclusive strategies within the project; the purpose of this paper is to focus on one of those strategies namely, generative interviews. These interviews are used as part of the survey design stage to inform and drive the content of the questionnaire. The themes that were generated from these interview discussions raised a number of important themes ranging from independent living skills to issues around education and employment. Three other emergent issues were: transport particularly access to it and its geographically patchy nature; use of computers with their attendant costs and ease of use; and attitudes related either to visually impaired people's attitudes towards their own visual impairment, or society's attitudes towards people with a visual impairment. The use of generative interviews has been an integral part of the project and reinforces its underlying philosophy of participant involvement; the themes generated have already been incorporated into the first year of the study.