Reading-Assistance Tools Among Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Computing Professionals in the U.S.: Their Reading Experiences, Interests and Perceptions of Social Accessibility

Richard E. Ladner Aashaka Desai Jennifer Mankoff

19 April 2023

Speechreading is the art of using visual and contextual cues in the environment to support listening. Often used by d/Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (d/DHH) individuals, it highlights nuances of rich communication. However, lived experiences of speechreaders are underdocumented in HCI literature, and the impact of online environments and interactions of captioning with speechreading has not been explored in depth. We bridge these gaps through a three-part study consisting of formative interviews, design probes, and design sessions with 12 d/DHH individuals who speechread. Our primary contribution is to understand the lived experience of speechreading in online communication, and thus to better understand the richness and variety of techniques d/DHH individuals use to provision access. We highlight technical, environmental and sociocultural factors that impact communication accessibility, explore the design space of speechreading supports and share considerations for the design future of speechreading technology.

Darren Gergle Anne Marie Piper T. B. McHugh + 1 lainnya

29 April 2022

Collaborative writing is an integral part of academic and professional work. Although some prior research has focused on accessibility in collaborative writing, we know little about how visually impaired writers work in real-time with sighted collaborators or how online editing tools could better support their work. Grounded in formative interviews and observations with eight screen reader users, we built Co11ab, a Google Docs extension that provides configurable audio cues to facilitate understanding who is editing (or edited) what and where in a shared document. Results from a design exploration with fifteen screen reader users, including three naturalistic sessions of use with sighted colleagues, reveal how screen reader users understand various auditory representations and use them to coordinate real-time collaborative writing. We revisit what collaboration awareness means for screen reader users and discuss design considerations for future systems.

Daniel E. Krutz Samuel A. Malachowsky

1 November 2020

This tutorial will introduce our Accessibility Learning Labs (ALL). The objectives of this collaborative project with The National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) are to both inform participants about foundational topics in accessibility and to demonstrate the importance of creating accessible software. The labs enable easy classroom inclusion by providing instructors all necessary materials including lecture and activity slides and videos. Each lab addresses an accessibility issue and contains: I) Relevant background information on the examined issue II) An example web-based application containing the accessibility problem III) A process to emulate this accessibility problem IV) Details about how to repair the problem from a technical perspective V) Incidents from people who encountered this accessibility issue and how it has impacted their life. The labs may be easily integrated into a wide variety of curriculum at high schools (9–12), and in undergraduate and graduate courses. The labs will be easily adoptable due to their self-contained nature and their inclusion of all necessary instructional material (e.g., slides, quizzes, etc.). No special software is required to use any portion of the labs since they are web-based and are able to run on any computer with a reasonably recent web browser. There are currently four available labs on the topics of: Colorblindness, Hearing, Blindness and Dexterity. Material is available on our website: http://all.rit.edu This tutorial will provide an overview of the created labs and usage instructions and information for adaptors.

E. J. Edwards Isabela Figueira Joshua Garcia + 4 lainnya

11 Mei 2024

Scholars have investigated numerous barriers to accessible software development tools and processes for Blind and Low Vision (BLV) developers. However, the research community has yet to study the accessibility of software development meetings, which are known to play a crucial role in software development practice. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 26 BLV software professionals about software development meeting accessibility. We found four key themes related to in-person and remote software development meetings: (1) participants observed that certain meeting activities and software tools used in meetings were inaccessible, (2) participants performed additional labor in order to make meetings accessible, (3) participants avoided disclosing their disability during meetings due to fear of career repercussions, (4) participants suggested technical, social and organizational solutions for accessible meetings, including developing their own solutions. We suggest recommendations and design implications for future accessible software development meetings including technical and policy-driven solutions.

Leah Findlater Kelly Avery Mack Jon E. Froehlich + 3 lainnya

12 Januari 2021

Accessibility research has grown substantially in the past few decades, yet there has been no literature review of the field. To understand current and historical trends, we created and analyzed a dataset of accessibility papers appearing at CHI and ASSETS since ASSETS’ founding in 1994. We qualitatively coded areas of focus and methodological decisions for the past 10 years (2010-2019, N=506 papers), and analyzed paper counts and keywords over the full 26 years (N=836 papers). Our findings highlight areas that have received disproportionate attention and those that are underserved—for example, over 43% of papers in the past 10 years are on accessibility for blind and low vision people. We also capture common study characteristics, such as the roles of disabled and nondisabled participants as well as sample sizes (e.g., a median of 13 for participant groups with disabilities and older adults). We close by critically reflecting on gaps in the literature and offering guidance for future work in the field.