Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) users face accessibility challenges during in-person and remote meetings. While emerging use of applications incorporating automatic speech recognition (ASR) is promising, more user-interface and user-experience research is needed. While co-design methods could elucidate designs for such applications, COVID-19 has interrupted in-person research. This study describes a novel methodology for conducting online co-design workshops with 18 DHH and hearing participant pairs to investigate ASR-supported mobile and videoconferencing technologies along two design dimensions: Correcting errors in ASR output and implementing notification systems for influencing speaker behaviors. Our methodological findings include an analysis of communication modalities and strategies participants used, use of an online collaborative whiteboarding tool, and how participants reconciled differences in ideas. Finally, we present guidelines for researchers interested in online DHH co-design methodologies, enabling greater geographically diversity among study participants even beyond the current pandemic.
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Deaf and hard-of-hearing users' preferences for hearing speakers' behavior during technology-mediated in-person and remote conversations
Various technologies mediate synchronous audio-visual one-on-one communication (SAVOC) between Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) and hearing colleagues, including automatic-captioning smartphone apps for in-person settings, or text-chat features of videoconferencing software in remote settings. Speech and non-verbal behaviors of hearing speakers, e.g. speaking too quietly, can make SAVOC difficult for DHH users, but prior work had not examined technology-mediated contexts. In an in-person study (N=20) with an automatic captioning smartphone app, variations in a hearing actor's enunciation and intonation dynamics affected DHH users' satisfaction. In a remote study (N=23) using a videoconferencing platform with text chat, variations in speech rate, voice intensity, enunciation, intonation dynamics, and eye contact led to such differences. This work contributes empirical evidence that specific behaviors of hearing speakers affect the accessibility of technology-mediated SAVOC for DHH users, providing motivation for future work on detecting or encouraging useful communication behaviors among hearing individuals.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1954284
- PAR ID:
- 10355407
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the 18th International Web for All Conference (W4A '21)
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 12
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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People who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) benefit from text captioning to understand audio, yet captions alone are often insufficient for the complex environment of a panel presentation, with rapid and unpredictable turn-taking among multiple speakers. It is challenging and tiring for DHH individuals to view captioned panel presentations, leading to feelings of misunderstanding and exclusion. In this work, we investigate the potential of Mixed Reality (MR) head-mounted displays for providing captioning with visual cues to indicate which person on the panel is speaking. For consistency in our experimental study, we simulate a panel presentation in virtual reality (VR) with various types of MR visual cues; in a study with 18 DHH participants, visual cues made it easier to identify speakers.more » « less
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Caption text conveys salient auditory information to deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) viewers. However, the emotional information within the speech is not captured. We developed three emotive captioning schemas that map the output of audio-based emotion detection models to expressive caption text that can convey underlying emotions. The three schemas used typographic changes to the text, color changes, or both. Next, we designed a Unity framework to implement these schemas and used it to generate stimuli videos. In an experimental evaluation with 28 DHH viewers, we compared DHH viewers’ ability to understand emotions and their subjective judgments across the three captioning schemas. We found no significant difference in participants’ ability to understand the emotion based on the captions or their subjective preference ratings. Open-ended feedback revealed factors contributing to individual differences in preferences among the participants and challenges with automatically generated emotive captions that motivate future work.more » « less
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null (Ed.)Automatic Text Simplification (ATS) software replaces text with simpler alternatives. While some prior research has explored its use as a reading assistance technology, including some empirical findings suggesting benefits for deploying this technology among particular groups of users, relatively little work has investigated the interest and requirements of specific groups of users of this technology. In this study, we investigated the interests of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) individuals in the computing industry in ATS-based reading assistance tools, motivated by prior work establishing that computing professionals often need to read about new technologies in order to stay current in their profession. Through a survey and follow-up interviews, we investigate these DHH individuals’ reading practices, current techniques for overcoming complicated text, and their interest in reading assistance tools for their work. Our results suggest that these users read relatively often, especially in support of their work, and they were interested in tools to assist them with complicated texts. This empirical contribution provides motivation for further research into ATS-based reading assistance tools for these users, prioritizing which reading activities users are most interested in seeing application of this technology, as well as some insights into design considerations for such tools.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3430263.3452430
