1

Accessibility ResearchCSE 590W Spring 2009

Richard Ladner University of Washington

2

Computer Scientists

TV RamanChristian Vogler

3

Computer Scientists

Chieko AsakawaIBM Japan

Hideji NagaokaTsukuba U. of Tech

4

Engineer

Iraq War VeteranJonathan Kuniholm

5

Geerat Vermeij

Geerat Vermeij, Ph.D.Evolutionary Biologist

6

Steven Hawking

75

Sangyun Hahn Ph.D. StudentCSE

Zach LattinMath Major

UWStudents

8

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.

9

What We’ll Do Today

• Models of Disability

• Data

• History – Disability and HCI

• Accessibility Research at UW

• Discussion

10

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.

11

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

12

What We’ll Do Today

• Models of Disability

• Data

• History – Disability and HCI

• Accessibility Research at UW

• Discussion

13

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

14

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

18

Number

Percent

Number (in thousands) Percent

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2002

15

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

16

What We’ll Do Today

• Models of Disability

• Data

• History – Disability and HCI

• Accessibility Research at UW

• Discussion

17

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)

18

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

19

Other Conferences

• ASSETS – ACM

• ICCHP– Europe

• CSUN– Cal State Northridge

• ATIA– Industry Conference

• W4A– Collocated with WWW

20

What We’ll Do Today

• Models of Disability

• Data

• History – Disability and HCI

• Accessibility Research at UW

• Discussion

21

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)

22

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

23

VoiceDraw

Susumu Harada, Jeff Bilmes, James Landay

2007-8 National Scholar Award for Workplace Innovation & Design, 2nd place

24

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)

25

Supple

Krzysztof Z Gajos, Jacob O. Wobbrock and Daniel S. Weld.

CHI 2008 Best Paper Award

26

ANATOMICALLY CORRECT TESTBED ROBOTIC HAND

Yoky Matsuoka

MacArthur Foundation Award 2007

27

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

28

What We’ll Do Today

• Models of Disability

• Data

• History – Disability and HCI

• Accessibility Research at UW

• Discussion

29

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

30

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

31

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?

32

Collaboration

MeaningfulAccess Technology

Con

sum

ers

Researchers

Industry