Deaf and Hard-of-hearing Users Evaluating Designs for Highlighting Key Words in Educational Lecture Videos

There are style guidelines for authors who highlight important words in static text, e.g., bolded words in student textbooks, yet little research has investigated highlighting in dynamic texts, e.g., captions during educational videos for Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) users. In our experimental study, DHH participants subjectively compared design parameters for caption highlighting, including: decoration (underlining vs. italicizing vs. boldfacing), granularity (sentence level vs. word level), and whether to highlight only the first occurrence of a repeating keyword. In partial contrast to recommendations in prior research, which had not been based on experimental studies with DHH users, we found that DHH participants preferred boldface, word-level highlighting in captions. Our empirical results provide guidance for the design of keyword highlighting during captioned videos for DHH users, especially in educational video genres.

Factors Affecting the Accessibility of Voice Telephony for People with Hearing Loss: Audio Encoding, Network Impairments, Video and Environmental Noise

This paper describes four studies with a total of 114 individuals with hearing loss and 12 hearing controls that investigate the impact of audio quality parameters on voice telecommunications. These studies were first informed by a survey of 439 individuals with hearing loss on their voice telecommunications experiences. While voice telephony was very important, with high usage of wireless mobile phones, respondents reported relatively low satisfaction with their hearing devices’ performance for telephone listening, noting that improved telephone audio quality was a significant need. The studies cover three categories of audio quality parameters: (1) narrowband (NB) versus wideband (WB) audio; (2) encoding audio at varying bit rates, from typical rates used in today's mobile networks to the highest quality supported by these audio codecs; and (3) absence of packet loss to worst-case packet loss in both mobile and VoIP networks. Additionally, NB versus WB audio was tested in auditory-only and audiovisual presentation modes and in quiet and noisy environments. With WB audio in a quiet environment, individuals with hearing loss exhibited better speech recognition, expended less perceived mental effort, and rated speech quality higher than with NB audio. WB audio provided a greater benefit when listening alone than when the visual channel also was available. The noisy environment significantly degraded performance for both presentation modes, but particularly for listening alone. Bit rate affected speech recognition for NB audio, and speech quality ratings for both NB and WB audio. Packet loss affected all of speech recognition, mental effort, and speech quality ratings. WB versus NB audio also affected hearing individuals, especially under packet loss. These results are discussed in terms of the practical steps they suggest for the implementation of telecommunications systems and related technical standards and policy considerations to improve the accessibility of voice telephony for people with hearing loss.

CheerBrush: A Novel Interactive Augmented Reality Coaching System for Toothbrushing Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder that impacts one in every 54 children in the United States. Some children with ASD have learning and fine motor skill challenges that contribute to difficulties completing daily living tasks such as toothbrushing. Lack of toothbrushing skills may cause increased need for dental care and negative social feedback from peers. Technology based intelligent support systems offer the advantages of being accessible, engaging, and cost-effective. In this work, we present a novel interactive augmented reality coaching system, CheerBrush, to improve the toothbrushing skills of children with ASD. CheerBrush allows children to manipulate virtual objects like a toothbrush and toothpaste with their actual hand motions to practice the steps of toothbrushing. The virtual tasks of CheerBrush demonstrate these steps using audio and visual cues, while also showing the brushing process through a virtual avatar. CheerBrush also assesses toothbrushing skills with a custom designed mechatronic toothbrush to evaluate the system's coaching effectiveness. A feasibility study with 12 children (six children with ASD and six typically developing children) was conducted to evaluate the acceptability and effectiveness of CheerBrush. The data showed improvements in the toothbrushing motions and reduced stress for the children in the post-test. CheerBrush detects real-time movement of children and interacts with them by augmented reality, feedback and multimodal hints. We believe that CheerBrush has the potential to provide a low-cost, engaging and, beneficial intelligent support system to improve the toothbrushing skills of children with ASD.

Effect of Sign-recognition Performance on the Usability of Sign-language Dictionary Search

Advances in sign-language recognition technology have enabled researchers to investigate various methods that can assist users in searching for an unfamiliar sign in ASL using sign-recognition technology. Users can generate a query by submitting a video of themselves performing the sign they believe they encountered somewhere and obtain a list of possible matches. However, there is disagreement among developers of such technology on how to report the performance of their systems, and prior research has not examined the relationship between the performance of search technology and users’ subjective judgements for this task. We conducted three studies using a Wizard-of-Oz prototype of a webcam-based ASL dictionary search system to investigate the relationship between the performance of such a system and user judgements. We found that, in addition to the position of the desired word in a list of results, the placement of the desired word above or below the fold and the similarity of the other words in the results list affected users’ judgements of the system. We also found that metrics that incorporate the precision of the overall list correlated better with users’ judgements than did metrics currently reported in prior ASL dictionary research.

Iterative Design of Sonification Techniques to Support People with Visual Impairments in Obstacle Avoidance

Obstacle avoidance is a major challenge during independent mobility for blind or visually impaired (BVI) people. Typically, BVI people can only perceive obstacles at a short distance (about 1 m, in case they are using the white cane), and some obstacles are hard to detect (e.g . , those elevated from the ground), or should not be hit by the white cane (e.g . , a standing person). A solution to these problems can be found in recent computer-vision techniques that can run on mobile and wearable devices to detect obstacles at a distance. However, in addition to detecting obstacles, it is also necessary to convey information about them in real time. This contribution presents WatchOut , a sonification technique for conveying real-time information about the main properties of an obstacle to a BVI person, who can then use this additional feedback to safely navigate in the environment. WatchOut was designed with a user-centered approach, involving four iterations of online listening tests with BVI participants in order to define, improve and evaluate the sonification technique, eventually obtaining an almost perfect recognition accuracy. WatchOut was also implemented and tested as a module of a mobile app that detects obstacles using state-of-the-art computer vision technology. Results show that the system is considered usable and can guide the users to avoid more than 85% of the obstacles.

Immersive Virtual Reality for Older Adults

Despite the proliferation of research on immersive virtual reality (IVR) technologies for older adults, comprehensive guidelines on designing immersive and engaging VR for older adults remain sparse. Therefore, we first compounded 67 guidelines based on published literature. Next, to empirically ground these design recommendations, we provided 37 older adults of diverse ages, education levels, and cognitive abilities with a first VR experience. Analyzing interviews with the 37 older adults via the Laddering method, we found that they generally reported positive experiences with their first VR exposure. With these deepened insights, we reflect on, nuance, and contextualize existing design guidelines, and formulate points to bear in mind when designing accessible and engaging VR experiences for older persons.

Fully Autonomous Vehicles for People with Visual Impairment

A significant number of individuals in the United States report a disability that limits their ability to travel, including many people who are blind or visually impaired (BVI). The implications of restricted transportation result in negative impacts related to economic security, physical and mental health, and overall quality of life. Fully autonomous vehicles (FAVs) present a means to mitigate travel barriers for this population by providing new, safe, and independent travel opportunities. However, current policies governing interactions with the artificial intelligence (AI) ‘at the wheel’ of FAVs do not reflect the accessibility needs articulated by BVI people in the extant literature, failing to encourage use cases that would result in life changing mobility. By reviewing the legislative and policy efforts surrounding FAVs, we argue that the heart of this problem is due to a disjointed, laissez-faire approach to FAV accessibility that has yet to actualize the full benefits of this new transportation mode, not only for BVI people, but also for all users. We outline the necessity for a policy framework that guides the design of FAVs to include the concerns of BVI people and then propose legislative and design recommendations aimed to promote enhanced accessibility, transparency, and fairness during FAV travel.

How Could Equality and Data Protection Law Shape AI Fairness for People with Disabilities?

This article examines the concept of ‘AI fairness’ for people with disabilities from the perspective of data protection and equality law. This examination demonstrates that there is a need for a distinctive approach to AI fairness that is fundamentally different to that used for other protected characteristics, due to the different ways in which discrimination and data protection law applies in respect of Disability. We articulate this new agenda for AI fairness for people with disabilities, explaining how combining data protection and equality law creates new opportunities for disabled people's organisations and assistive technology researchers alike to shape the use of AI, as well as to challenge potential harmful uses.

Irrelevant Gadgets or a Source of Worry

Wearable activity trackers are routinely applied in physical activity (PA) interventions in late life, but there is little research that focuses on older adults' perspectives on the technology. We conducted a qualitative study with 24 older persons to explore their perspective on wearables and PA. First, we discussed their relationship with PA and wearable trackers during focus groups. Next, nine participants crafted prototypes for wearables during co-design sessions. Through Thematic Analysis, we identified two main themes: (1) PA is personal in terms of preferred activities and reasons for PA, and (2) wearables are an emotional technology, causing negative emotions when resembling medical trackers or pressurizing to perform. We followed upon these results through a survey with 41 participants, which further highlighted individual differences in the perception of wearables. We conclude with questions to guide the design of wearables and reflect on their role to support PA in late life.