SIGACCESS Newsletter

In this article, Elaine Czech presents research that explores how technology can improve accessibility to community spaces and programs for people living with dementia and their informal carers. Elaine describes a study to better understand how technology used for social programs changed during the COVID19 pandemic and resulting guidelines for how program coordinators and technologists can adapt and develop technology for disseminating social programs.

In this article, Tessa Eagle highlights social media as digitally-mediated support for neurodivergent individuals. Tessa adopts a critical disability theory lens to critique techno-solutionism currently present in digital mental health care. Existing social media platforms can provide community support for neurodivergent individuals. Tessa shares plans for future research that explores relationships with diagnostic and care systems, as well as ongoing tensions with healthcare providers in both physical and digital spaces.     

In this article, Emma McDonnell presents a case study consisting of four projects that explores ways that closed captioning technology could support accessible social norms between mixed groups of d/Deaf and hard of hearing people and hearing people that follow the disability justice principle of collective access. Emma explores how attention to the social and environmental aspects of captioning can drive technology that supports collective access approaches to accessible communication.          

In this article, Muhe Yang highlights challenges in designing technology that supports older adults who live alone in meeting recommended physical activity levels. Muhe shares a human-centered iterative design protocol for designing technology that will meet the needs of this population. Muhe plans to make contributions to improve co-design practices for working with older adults.  

In this article, Leon Lu presents current and future research about using haptics to create a more accessible experience for music learners who are blind or low vision. Leon's research includes the development of assistive technologies rather than relying on learning environments and educator accommodations.

In this article, Christina Karpodini innovates ways of making interaction with Digital Audio Workstations more accessible for musicians with visual impairments. Christina outlines plans to conduct a series of experiments to examine the possibilities of mapping haptic feedback to audio effects parameter, potentially using machine learning automations.      

In this article, Zeynep Yıldız aims to extend the body of literature in collaborative access by presenting the importance of socio-technical perspectives for designing collaborative technologies to support equal distribution of access. Specifically, this research focuses on understanding the role of socio-technical infrastructures for the organization and distribution of access by mixed-ability collaborators and developing design insights for socio-technical mechanisms to support equal distribution of access for people with disabilities.

Matt Huenerfauth, Chair. Matt Huenerfauth is a Professor and the Director of the iSchool (School of Information) at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). He studies the design of technology to benefit people who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing or who have low written-language literacy, and his team of research students operates bilingually in English and American Sign Language (ASL).

Kathleen McCoy, Vice-Chair. Kathleen McCoy is a professor in the Department of Computer & Information Sciences. Her research focuses broadly on accessibility for people with disabilities with projects in several different areas. She has a special emphasis on applications of Computational Linguistics/Natural Language Processing to accessibility issues.

Karyn Moffatt, Secretary Treasurer. Heidi is a professor in the Computer and Information Sciences Department and the director of the School of Emerging Technologies at Towson University. She received a Ph.D. in Information Sciences from UMBC in 2005. She conducts research in the area of Human-Computer Interaction, universal accessibility, Health-informatics, and usable and accessible Security. She works closely with national and local communities to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities through information technology.