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The popularity of accessibility research has grown recently, improving digital inclusion for people with disabilities. However, researchers, including those who have disabilities, have attempted to include people with disabilities in all aspects of design, and they have identified a myriad of practical accessibility barriers posed by tools and methods leveraged by human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers during prototyping. To build a more inclusive technological landscape, we must question the effectiveness of existing prototyping tools and methods, repurpose/retrofit existing resources, and build new tools and methods to support the participation of both researchers and people with disabilities within the prototyping design process of novel technologies. This full-day workshop at CHI 2025 will provide a platform for HCI researchers, designers, and practitioners to discuss barriers and opportunities for creating accessible prototyping and promote hands-on ideation and fabrication exercises aimed at futuring accessible prototyping.
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Anticipate and Adjust: Cultivating Access in Human-Centered Methods
Methods are fundamental to doing research and can directly impact who is included in scientific advances. Given accessibility research's increasing popularity and pervasive barriers to conducting and participating in research experienced by people with disabilities, it is critical to ask how methods are made accessible. Yet papers rarely describe their methods in detail. This paper reports on 17 interviews with accessibility experts about how they include both facilitators and participants with disabilities in popular user research methods. Our findings offer strategies for anticipating access needs while remaining flexible and responsive to unexpected access barriers. We emphasize the importance of considering accessibility at all stages of the research process, and contextualize access work in recent disability and accessibility literature. We explore how technology or processes could reflect a norm of accessibility. Finally, we discuss how various needs intersect and conflict and offer a practical structure for planning accessible research.
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- PAR ID:
- 10354105
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- CHI '22: Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 18
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3501882
