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Accessibility ResearchCSE 590W Spring 2009
Richard Ladner University of Washington
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Computer Scientists
TV RamanChristian Vogler
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Computer Scientists
Chieko AsakawaIBM Japan
Hideji NagaokaTsukuba U. of Tech
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Engineer
Iraq War VeteranJonathan Kuniholm
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Geerat Vermeij
Geerat Vermeij, Ph.D.Evolutionary Biologist
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Steven Hawking
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Sangyun Hahn Ph.D. StudentCSE
Zach LattinMath Major
UWStudents
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The Message
• People with disabilities can do almost anything in almost any scientific field.
• People with disabilities are often highly motivated to pursue careers in accessibility research.
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What We’ll Do Today
• Models of Disability
• Data
• History – Disability and HCI
• Accessibility Research at UW
• Discussion
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Models of Disability
• Medical Model– Disabled people are patients who need treatment and/or cure.
• Rehabilitation Model– Disabled people need assistive technology for employment and
everyday life.
• Legal Model– Disabled people are citizens who have rights and responsibilities
like other citizens. Accessibility to public buildings and spaces, voting, television, and telephone are some of those rights.
• Social Model– Disabled people are part of the diversity of life, not necessarily in
need of treatment and cure. They do need access when possible.
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Technology
• Prosthesis– Augmentation to restore lost function. Call it a “cure.”
• Assistive technology– Popular in rehabilitation literature. Emphasis on the
need for assistance.• Access technology
– Allows an activity that would be difficult to impossible to achieve without it. Emphasis not on restoring function, but on achieving an end goal by whatever means possible.
– Examples: Screen readers, video phones, wheel chairs
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What We’ll Do Today
• Models of Disability
• Data
• History – Disability and HCI
• Accessibility Research at UW
• Discussion
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Basic Data
• 16% of US population to ages 15 to 64 is disabled.
• 10% of the workforce is disabled
• 5% of the STEM workforce is disabled
• 1% of PhDs in STEM are disabled
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Demographics General Population
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
With a disability Difficulty seeing Difficulty hearing Difficulty withspeech
Difficultywalking/using
stairs
Learningdisability
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
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Number
Percent
Number (in thousands) Percent
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2002
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Demographics Ages 14-21
0
20
40
60
80
100
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Percent
Specific learningdisabilities
Visual impairments
Hearing impairments
Orthopedic impairments
Multiple
Other
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, www.ideadata.org
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What We’ll Do Today
• Models of Disability
• Data
• History – Disability and HCI
• Accessibility Research at UW
• Discussion
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CHI “Disability” Search
• Year Number
• 1982 – 85 0
• 1986 – 9010 (4%)
• 1990 – 9515 (5%)
• 1996 – 00 20 (6%)
• 2001 – 05 90 (23%)
• 2006 – 08 71 (17%) (3 years)
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Earliest CHI Papers - 1987
• “A case example of human factors in product definition: needs finding for a voice output workstation for the blind”– Richard M. Kane, Matthew Yuschik
• “A user interface for deaf-blind people”– Richard Ladner, Randy Day, Dennis Gentry, Karin
Meyer, Scott Rose• “Towards universality of access: interfacing
physically disabled students to the Icon educational microcomputer”– Gerbrand Verburg, Debbie Field, Francois St. Pierre,
Stephen Naumann
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Other Conferences
• ASSETS – ACM
• ICCHP– Europe
• CSUN– Cal State Northridge
• ATIA– Industry Conference
• W4A– Collocated with WWW
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What We’ll Do Today
• Models of Disability
• Data
• History – Disability and HCI
• Accessibility Research at UW
• Discussion
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UW Faculty Involvement
• Richard Ladner (CSE)• Dan Weld (CSE)• James Landay (CSE)• Gaetano Borriello (CSE)• Yoky Matsuoka (CSE)• Jake Wobbrock (Information School)• Eve Riskin (EE) • Mari Ostendorf (EE)• Jeff Bilmes (EE)• Julie Kientz (ISchool and TC)• Shwetak Patel (CSE,EE)
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UW Research Students with Disabilities
• Shawn Kane*• Sangyun Hahn*• Zack Lattin*• Lindsay Yazzolino*• Stewart Olsen*• Matt Starn• Jason Schwebke• Annemarie Poginy*• Tim Shockley*• Jessie Shulman *• Andy Martin*• Barbara Wagreich* *Co-authors
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VoiceDraw
Susumu Harada, Jeff Bilmes, James Landay
2007-8 National Scholar Award for Workplace Innovation & Design, 2nd place
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WebAnywhere
Jeff Bigham
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Award for Technology Collaboration (2008)- Microsoft Imagine Cup Accessible Technology Award (2008) - W4A Accessibility Challenge Delegate’s Award (2008)
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Supple
Krzysztof Z Gajos, Jacob O. Wobbrock and Daniel S. Weld.
CHI 2008 Best Paper Award
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ANATOMICALLY CORRECT TESTBED ROBOTIC HAND
Yoky Matsuoka
MacArthur Foundation Award 2007
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Other Centers of Excellence
• University of Wisconsin– TRACE Center
• Carnegie Mellon University / University of Pittsburgh– Quality of Life Center
• Georgia Institute of Technology
• University of Colorado
• MIT
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What We’ll Do Today
• Models of Disability
• Data
• History – Disability and HCI
• Accessibility Research at UW
• Discussion
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Concepts in HCI
• User Centered Design– Involve the user at every step
• Universal Design– Design for all users, if possible
• Design for User Empowerment– Design to enable people to solve their own
accessibility problems, if possible
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Lab vs. Field Studies
• Lab+ Log every event, maybe even mental activity+ Control the variables+ Same tasks- Limited time- Applicability may be suspect
• Field+ Log many events, but not all+ Unlimited time+ Applicability assured- Different tasks- User logging might be inaccurate
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Challenges
• Fitts’ Law for blind people– Original Fitts’ law is actual a psycho-visual-
motor law not just a psycho-motor law as claimed.
– Could lead to a better screen reader?
• Purpose of Research– Publication?– Dissemination and Deployment?
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Collaboration
MeaningfulAccess Technology
Con
sum
ers
Researchers
Industry