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• A Unifying Notification System To Scale Up Assistive Services

  Charles Consel, Lucile Dupuy, Hélène Sauzéon · 2015 · ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This paper addresses a fundamental scalability problem in assistive technology for older adults: the "silo-based" approach where each assistive service (pill reminders, door monitors, activity trackers) implements its own notification system. When older adults need multiple…

  aging · assisted living · notification systems · cognitive accessibility · smart home

• Faster Text-to-Speeches: Enhancing Blind People's Information Scanning with Faster Concurrent Speech

  João Guerreiro, Daniel Gonçalves · 2015 · ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This paper investigates how blind users can scan digital information more efficiently by comparing two approaches: increasing speech rate (the traditional method) versus using concurrent speech (multiple simultaneous voices). The research leverages the "Cocktail Party…

  blindness · screen readers · text-to-speech · speech rate · concurrent speech

• Iterative Design and Field Trial of an Aphasia-Friendly Email Tool

  Abdullah Al Mahmud, Jean-Bernard Martens · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper presents Amail, an email client specifically designed for people with aphasia—an acquired communication disorder typically caused by stroke that affects language comprehension and expression. Unlike existing AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) tools that…

  aphasia · augmentative and alternative communication · email · field study · cognitive accessibility

• Individuality-Preserving Voice Conversion for Articulation Disorders Using Phoneme-Categorized Exemplars

  Ryo Aihara, Tetsuya Takiguchi, Yasuo Ariki · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper presents a voice conversion system designed to improve speech intelligibility for people with articulation disorders resulting from athetoid cerebral palsy, while critically preserving the speaker's voice individuality. Cerebral palsy affects about 2 in 1,000 births,…

  voice conversion · articulation disorders · cerebral palsy · speech technology · assistive technology

• Speech Interaction with Personal Assistive Robots Supporting Aging at Home for Individuals with Alzheimer's Disease

  Frank Rudzicz, Rosalie Wang, Momotaz Begum, Alex Mihailidis · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This study examines speech-based interaction between older adults with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and a mobile assistive robot called ED, designed to help with activities of daily living. The research addresses a critical healthcare challenge: many nations lack capacity to support…

  Alzheimer's disease · dementia · assistive robotics · speech recognition · aging in place

• A Performance Comparison of On-Hand versus On-Phone Nonvisual Input by Blind and Sighted Users

  Uran Oh, Leah Findlater · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This study investigates whether using one's own hand as an input surface offers performance advantages over touchscreen phones for blind users performing nonvisual interaction. On-body input is particularly attractive for blind users because it provides enhanced tactile and…

  on-body interaction · mobile accessibility · blindness · touchscreen accessibility · gesture input

• Perspectives on Speech and Language Interaction for Daily Assistive Technology: Introduction to Part 1 of the Special Issue

  Heidi Christensen, Frank Rudzicz, François Portet, Jan Alexandersson · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This editorial introduces the first part of a TACCESS special issue on speech and language interaction for daily assistive technology, emerging from the 2013 SLPAT (Speech and Language Processing for Assistive Technologies) workshop. The editors frame speech and natural language…

  speech recognition · disordered speech · dysarthria · speech intelligibility · assistive technology

• Evaluation of a Context-Aware Voice Interface for Ambient Assisted Living: Qualitative User Study vs. Quantitative System Evaluation

  Michel Vacher, Sybille Caffiau, François Portet, Brigitte Meillon, Camille Roux, Elena Eluj, Benjamin Lecouteux, Pedro Chahuara · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This study evaluates Sweet-Home, a voice-controlled smart home system designed to help older adults and people with visual impairments maintain independence at home. The research was conducted in a realistic 30-square-meter smart apartment (Domus) equipped with 150 sensors, 7…

  ambient assisted living · voice interface · smart home · aging in place · visual impairment

• Measuring the Performance of a Location-Aware Text Prediction System

  Luís Filipe Garcia, Luís Caldas De Oliveira, David Martins De Matos · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This study rigorously evaluates whether adding location awareness to word and sentence prediction improves communication efficiency for AAC users. The researchers developed Eugénio, a Portuguese AAC system that combines traditional word prediction with sentence prediction and…

  augmentative and alternative communication · word prediction · sentence prediction · location-awareness · context-aware computing

• Guiding Novice Web Workers in Making Image Descriptions Using Templates

  Valerie S. Morash, Yue-Ting Siu, Joshua A. Miele, Lucia Hasty, Steven Landau · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This study compares two approaches for using non-expert crowdworkers to create accessible descriptions of STEM images (charts, graphs, diagrams) for people who are blind or have print-reading disabilities. The researchers tested Free-Response Image Description (FRID), where…

  image description · alt text · crowdsourcing · human computation · STEM accessibility

• Automatic Detection of Phone-Based Anomalies in Dysarthric Speech

  Imed Laaridh, Corinne Fredouille, Christine Meunier · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This research develops automatic methods to detect and localize acoustic anomalies in speech produced by people with dysarthria, a motor speech disorder caused by neurological damage affecting the respiratory, phonatory, resonatory, articulatory, or prosodic components of…

  dysarthria · speech recognition · automatic speech processing · motor speech disorders · clinical assessment

• Intelligibility Assessment and Speech Recognizer Word Accuracy Rate Prediction for Dysarthric Speakers in a Factor Analysis Subspace

  David Martínez, Phil Green, Heidi Christensen · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper presents a novel approach to assessing speech intelligibility and predicting automatic speech recognition (ASR) accuracy for speakers with dysarthria using iVectors, a technique from speaker verification research. The authors address a critical challenge in assistive…

  dysarthric speech · speech recognition · intelligibility assessment · iVectors · factor analysis

• Towards Fully Automated Motion Capture of Signs -- Development and Evaluation of a Key Word Signing Avatar

  Simon Alexanderson, Jonas Beskow · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This research develops a cost-effective method for capturing sign language motion to animate a signing avatar for the Tivoli project—a game-based learning environment teaching Key Word Signing (KWS) to children with communication disabilities including developmental disorders,…

  sign language · motion capture · signing avatar · augmentative and alternative communication · Key Word Signing

• Filteryedping: Design Challenges and User Performance of Dwell-Free Eye Typing

  Diogo Pedrosa, Maria da Graça Pimentel, Amy Wright, Khai N. Truong · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper introduces Filteryedping, a dwell-free eye typing technique designed to help people with severe motor disabilities communicate through eye gaze. Traditional dwell-based eye typing requires users to fixate on a key for a specific duration (typically 400-1000ms) to…

  eye tracking · eye typing · dwell-free · motor disability · ALS

• Investigating Information Search by People with Cognitive Disabilities

  Ruimin Hu, Jinjuan Heidi Feng · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This empirical study investigated how people with cognitive disabilities navigate websites with different content structures and use search engines to find information. Twenty-three participants with various cognitive disabilities (primarily Down syndrome, but also cerebral…

  cognitive disabilities · information search · web navigation · website structure · search engines

• Automatic Assessment of Speech Capability Loss in Disordered Speech

  Thomas Pellegrini, Lionel Fontan, Julie Mauclair, Jérôme Farinas, Charlotte Alazard-Guiu, Marina Robert, Peggy Gatignol · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper investigates whether the Goodness of Pronunciation (GOP) algorithm, originally developed for computer-assisted language learning to detect non-native speaker mispronunciations, can be repurposed to assess speech capability loss in people with speech disorders. The…

  disordered speech · speech assessment · automatic speech recognition · facial palsy · pronunciation assessment

• Making It Simplext: Implementation and Evaluation of a Text Simplification System for Spanish

  Horacio Saggion, Sanja Štajner, Stefan Bott, Simon Mille, Luz Rello, Biljana Drndarevic · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper presents Simplext, the first comprehensive automatic text simplification (ATS) system for Spanish. The research addresses a fundamental accessibility barrier: textual content written in complex language excludes people with cognitive disabilities, low literacy, and…

  text simplification · natural language processing · cognitive accessibility · readability · Spanish

• Reconstruction of Phonated Speech from Whispers Using Formant-Derived Plausible Pitch Modulation

  Ian V. McLoughlin, Hamid Reza Sharifzadeh, Su Lim Tan, Jingjie Li, Yan Song · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper addresses a fundamental communication barrier for people who can only whisper due to voice impairments. While whispering is an occasional choice for most people, it is the primary—sometimes only—communication method for partial laryngectomees, those on prescribed…

  speech technology · voice reconstruction · laryngectomy · voice disorders · whisper-to-speech

• Gauging Receptiveness to Social Microvolunteering

  Erin Brady, Meredith Ringel Morris, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2015 · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  This paper introduces the concept of social microvolunteering — a hybrid of friendsourcing and microvolunteering where volunteers install an application that posts microtasks to their social media feeds, enabling their friends to contribute to causes they care about. The…

  crowdsourcing · microvolunteering · friendsourcing · social media · visual impairment

• ApplianceReader: A Wearable, Crowdsourced, Vision-based System to Make Appliances Accessible

  Anhong Guo, Xiang "Anthony" Chen, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2015 · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts

  This work-in-progress paper presents ApplianceReader, a wearable system that combines a point-of-view camera (Google Glass) with crowdsourcing and computer vision to make everyday appliance control panels accessible to people with visual impairments. The system addresses a…

  appliance accessibility · crowdsourcing · computer vision · wearable technology · blindness

• RegionSpeak: Quick Comprehensive Spatial Descriptions of Complex Images for Blind Users

  Yu Zhong, Walter S. Lasecki, Erin Brady, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2015 · Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2015)

  This paper introduces RegionSpeak, a mobile application that helps blind users get comprehensive spatial descriptions of complex visual scenes by combining image stitching with parallelized crowdsourced labeling. The authors identify a gap in existing visual question-answering…

  visual accessibility · crowdsourcing · image description · spatial awareness · blind users

• Zensors: Adaptive, Rapidly Deployable, Human-Intelligent Sensor Feeds

  Gierad Laput, Walter S. Lasecki, Jason Wiese, Robert Xiao, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Chris Harrison · 2015 · Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2015)

  Zensors presents a novel sensing platform that combines real-time human intelligence from online crowd workers with machine learning to create adaptive, rapidly deployable intelligent sensors. The system addresses a fundamental gap in smart environment technology: traditional…

  crowdsourcing · human computation · computer vision · smart environments · machine learning

• Accessible Crowdwork? Understanding the Value in and Challenge of Microtask Employment for People with Disabilities

  Kathryn Zyskowski, Meredith Ringel Morris, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Mary L. Gray, Shaun K. Kane · 2015 · Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW 2015)

  This paper presents the first formal study of crowdworkers who have disabilities, using a mixed-methods approach combining in-depth interviews with 17 people (8 disabled crowdworkers and 9 job coaches for people with disabilities) and a survey of 631 adults with disabilities.…

  crowdsourcing · disability employment · workplace accessibility · digital inclusion · assistive technology

• Exploring Interface Design for Independent Navigation by People with Visual Impairments

  Erin L. Brady, Daisuke Sato, Chengxiong Ruan, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa · 2015 · ASSETS 2015: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This short poster paper from ASSETS 2015 explores how people with visual impairments respond to different navigation interface designs during in situ walking tasks. The authors observe that prior research has been limited in two ways: user studies of navigation applications are…

  visual impairment · blind navigation · non-visual navigation · wayfinding · wizard of oz

• Motivating Multi-Generational Crowd Workers in Social-Purpose Work

  Masatomo Kobayashi, Shoma Arita, Toshinari Itoko, Shin Saito, Hironobu Takagi · 2015 · CSCW '15: Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing

  This CSCW 2015 paper from IBM Research Tokyo and the University of Tokyo investigates how to sustain a volunteer community in 'social-purpose crowdsourcing' — crowd work with altruistic goals such as supporting libraries or producing materials for people with disabilities. The…

  crowdsourcing · social-purpose crowdsourcing · motivation · gamification · GLAM