SlidePacer: A Presentation Delivery Tool for Instructors of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students
Alessandra Brandão, Hugo Nicolau, Shreya Tadas, Vicki L. Hanson · 2016 · ASSETS '16: Proceedings of the 18th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/2982142.2982177
Summary
SlidePacer addresses a fundamental challenge for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students in mainstream classrooms: the cognitive overload caused by splitting attention between multiple visual sources—instructor, slides, and sign language interpreter. Unlike previous classroom technologies that focused on helping students manage this split attention (e.g., merging views into a single screen), SlidePacer takes a different approach by targeting the delivery side of instruction. The tool consists of two coordinated components: a PowerPoint add-in for instructors and an Android/smartwatch application for interpreters. When an instructor advances a slide, SlidePacer waits for the interpreter to signal completion (via a simple tap on the smartwatch), then provides a configurable delay for students to read the slide content before proceeding. This creates a synchronized "instructional unit" where verbal explanation and visual materials are temporally separated rather than competing for attention. The researchers grounded their design in cognitive load theory, recognizing that hearing students can process auditory (speech) and visual (slides) information simultaneously, while DHH students must receive both through the visual channel. This inherent disadvantage means that even with interpreter services, DHH students often miss critical information. By controlling presentation pace and coordinating instructor-interpreter timing, SlidePacer aims to reduce cognitive demands and provide genuine access to all lecture content.
Key findings
A user study with 60 participants (30 DHH, 30 hearing) revealed several important outcomes: DHH participants dramatically increased their slide-viewing time from an average of 30 seconds (control) to 80 seconds with SlidePacer—a 2.7x increase corresponding to 7.3 seconds per slide versus 2.7 seconds in the control condition. This brought their visual material access time to parity with hearing students in traditional settings (~80 vs ~86 seconds). Learning performance showed positive but non-significant trends. DHH retention scores improved from 2.93 to 3.27, and transfer scores from 3.5 to 3.73. The researchers attribute the lack of statistical significance to the simplicity of their test content (minimalist image-based slides about lightning formation). Interestingly, hearing participants benefited more from SlidePacer than DHH participants, with larger effect sizes for both retention and transfer scores in the paced condition. Both groups perceived SlidePacer lectures as "slightly slow," suggesting a novelty effect or adjustment period may be needed. A notable behavioral finding: DHH students continued splitting their attention during verbal instructions even when given dedicated slide-viewing time, suggesting deeply ingrained coping strategies that may limit potential gains.
Relevance
This research represents an important paradigm shift in classroom accessibility—moving responsibility for accommodation from students to instructors and infrastructure. Rather than adding cognitive load to already-overloaded DHH learners with new attention-management tools, SlidePacer modifies the source of instruction itself. For practitioners, the key insight is that interpreter presence alone does not guarantee equal access. The temporal mismatch between speech, interpretation, and visual materials creates an inherent disadvantage that requires deliberate pacing interventions. Organizations deploying presentation technologies should consider built-in pacing features or interpreter-presenter coordination mechanisms. The finding that hearing students also benefited from paced delivery suggests that slower, synchronized presentations may improve learning for all students—a universal design principle worth exploring. Future implementations might incorporate dynamic timing based on slide complexity, automatic gesture recognition to detect interpretation completion, or student gaze tracking to optimize pacing.
Tags: deaf and hard of hearing · sign language interpreting · cognitive load · multimedia learning · classroom accessibility · presentation tools · education accessibility · split attention