Accessibility in screen media is typically framed as services for discrete user groups (e.g. visually impaired users), with HCI work largely focusing on post-production and playback interventions rather than the wider production ecology. We report findings from interviews and workshops with media practitioners spanning pre-production, production, and post-production, surfacing a gap between practitioners’ orientation toward meeting audiences where they are and the organisational conditions that systematically prevent this. Our thematic analysis shows how access is (a) authored into storytelling and planning when time and creative ownership allow, (b) undermined by fragmented responsibility and remit boundaries across handovers, and (c) constrained by workflow realities and product economics that shape what can be delivered, maintained, and scaled. We also surface frictions between creative intent and end-user comprehension, and between device-level personalisation and source-level authorship. We contribute a design agenda for integrated media accessibility, including principles for making space and time for access, supporting inclusive viewing, and enabling accountable content creation and automation.

Audio media – radio, podcasts, audiobooks – structures everyday life: we keep up, wind down, and share moments through long-form listening. Yet for people living with aphasia – a communication disability that affects audio comprehension – unsupported audio often means losing the thread and marring the experience. While accessibility advances have focused on print, web, and audiovisual content, audio-only remains unconsidered; oftentimes optimised for marketisation rather than sustained understanding.We report a three-week in-situ deployment of Re-Connect app, an audio media player which meets the people at the moment of comprehension difficulty. With ten adults living with aphasia, we show how people assemble personal repertoires of small, co-present communication cues that repair in the moment and support recall. Grounded in lived experience, we argue for personal, source-proximate scaffolds that help make long-form audio more understandable and enjoyable.

Progressive digitisation and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) are reshaping welfare services in ways that risk compounding inequalities for disabled people. Globally, many governments present these reforms as beneficial–streamlining processes, reducing costs and eliminating delays. Yet digitisation and automation of welfare decision-making can deepen exclusion and erode human accountability. In response, this paper foregrounds the lived experiences of people with the communication disability aphasia in navigating digitised welfare and their perspectives on AI-automated futures. We report findings from a four-stage participatory design study involving eight workshops with 42 recruited co-designers. Reflexive thematic analysis identified five challenges: the cost of performing disability, geographies of inequity, navigating digital bureaucracy, the accessibility paradox and hostile design. Co-designers voiced concerns about AI-automation but envisioned inclusive future alternatives: AI dialogues that are patient, multimodal and supportive; welfare systems that are compassionate, transparent and retain human recourse; and infrastructures that are open, publicly governed and truthful.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) applications in artistic and creative domains have gained substantial attention of late. These intelligent interactive systems, shaped by innovations in Large Language Models (LLMs) and Vision Language Models (VLMs), are materially impacting digital creative domains. While initial work to understand this space has highlighted new models and architectures, we lack a holistic view of how interactive GenAI systems are designed for user interactions across various artistic and creative domains. In this paper, we present a systematic review of interactive GenAI system designs for art and creativity in the HCI literature (N = 189), and a detailed taxonomy of interaction paradigms with design components. We shed light on the communities of design focus and decompose the system interaction designs, mapping these characteristics to creative domains, user interaction patterns, GenAI technologies, detailing under-represented spaces, and future directions of designing interactions for GenAI creativity.

Digital audiovisual media (e.g., TV, streamed video) is an essential aspect of our modern lives, yet it lacks accessibility -- people living with disabilities can experience significant barriers. While accessibility interventions can improve the access to audiovisual media, people living with complex communication needs have been under-represented in research and are potentially left behind. Future visions of accessible digital audiovisual media posit highly personalised content that meets complex accessibility needs. We explore the impact of such a future by conducting bespoke co-design sessions with people with aphasia -- a language impairment common post-stroke -- creating four highly personal accessibility interventions that leverage audiovisual media personalisation. We then trialled these prototypes with 11 users with aphasia; examining the effects on shared social experiences, creative intent, interaction complexity, and feasibility for content producers. We conclude by critically reflecting on future implementations, raising open questions and suggesting future research directions.

Widespread abandonment continues to hinder the long-term adoption of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices among communities living with aphasia. Challenges with AAC are complex - ranging from poor personalization and stigma to prohibitive costs. Critics argue that many AAC tools reflect top-down, medicalized models shaped by ableist assumptions and commercial agendas. In response, this paper presents bottom-up perspectives from a four-month qualitative study of Zuzenna’s DIY AAC: a self-made communication diary. Far from a prescribed device, her diary is a bespoke, organically evolving tool that empowers her daily life and recovery after stroke. We offer a re-imagining of AAC design grounded in lived experience, highlighting how future tools might: (a) foster genuine communion through share-ability, (b) uphold agency by empowering self-expression, (c) value personal labour and support growth. Zuzenna's diary reveals that AAC does not have to be techno-centric or expensive to be powerful -- it just needs to be personal.

Cerebral palsy (CP) affects millions globally, many of whom rely on technology to support daily living and communication.Yet, there is a notable absence of formal autoethnographic research exploring the lived experiences of people with CP, particularly those who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices.This paper presents a longitudinal autoethnographic study of Tianchi, an international PhD student with CP as he navigated the final stages of his doctoral journey.Using a structured, questionnairebased diary method, we captured daily reflections on his everyday life, use of assistive technologies and communication experiences.Thematic analysis of the data revealed three key findings: Tianchi demonstrates resilience through technical proficiency and creative adaptations of mainstream technologies; the hidden labour of communication challenges complicate his access to community support and his reliance on both care and technology exposes fragile interdependencies.We further discuss: the importance of reducing input exertion for people with CP, the high costs of being heard and recognize the unanticipated benefits of non-assistive technologies.Ultimately, this study underscores the need for more participatory, first-person research approaches with communities living with CP.

Audio-media, such as radio and podcasts, are a vital means to engage with global events, access education, or offer entertainment. However, for people with complex communication needs, such as aphasia, there can be accessibility challenges. While accessibility research has largely focused on audiovisual media, little work has considered audio-media, particularly for users with complex communication needs. To address this gap, we undertook six co-design workshops with 10 people with aphasia to re-imagine access to audio-media. We uncover how our co-designers perceive audio-media as more than a tool, but a part of daily intimacies; shaping social relationships and contributing to therapeutic recovery. Through a Research-through-Design process culminating in one low-fidelity and three high-fidelity technology probes that embody novel accessibility interventions, our findings further challenge conventional approaches to audio-media accessibility and signal new directions for future design.

Videoconferencing is integral to modern work and living. Recently, technologists have sought to leverage data captured -- e.g. from cameras and microphones -- to augment communication. This might mean capturing communication information about verbal (e.g. speech, chat messages), or non-verbal exchanges (e.g. body language, gestures, tone of voice) and using this to mediate -- and potentially improve -- communication. However, such tracking has implications for user experience and raises wider concerns (e.g. privacy). To design tools which account for user needs and preferences, this study investigates perspectives on communication tracking through a global survey and interviews, exploring how daily behaviours and the impact of specific features influence user perspectives. We examine user preferences on non-verbal communication tracking, preferred methods of how this information is conveyed and to whom this should be communicated. Our findings aim to guide the development of non-verbal communication tools which augment videoconferencing that prioritise user needs.

People rely on online information for important life tasks such as managing personal finances and understanding medical symptoms. However, due to its intrinsically language-focused nature, online search poses considerable difficulties for people with language impairments. Currently these difficulties are poorly understood. We report findings from an observation of the information search behavior of 12 people with aphasia. We identify a wide range of difficulties and strategies aimed at combating them, spanning the entire information search process. Findings include previously unreported difficulties and strategies that highlight the importance of designing search technologies to better support the complex needs of people who find language challenging, such as by facilitating word finding cueing strategies, error prevention and recovery, browsing, appropriation, text interpretation and and by decreasing reliance on language competency in general. This has the potential not only to benefit searchers with language impairments, but to make information search easier for all.

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technologies are typically fixed-form factor mobile devices, which can be physically obtrusive and visually identifiable – perpetuating public stigmas and limiting non-verbal communication. These qualities are undesirable for many AAC-using communities including stroke survivors, who can have complex communication needs onset by aphasia and hemiplegic body paralysis. Furthermore, underrepresented communities such as people with aphasia are often unconsidered in the design of emerging technologies. We contest these trends by asking what these emerging and future technologies might mean for communication support. To do this, we envision and prototype mixed reality and discreet assistive technologies that support communication with people living with aphasia. We report results from the co-design process, including participants’ perspectives on nascent mixed reality, diegetic technologies, and outcomes from low-fidelity AAC prototyping. These activities culminated in three high-fidelity prototypes with different characteristics and form-factors: Pico-project AAC, Prompt AAC and Holo AAC, which embody projection, worn audio devices, and headset driven mixed reality. From subsequent focus groups, we present findings from an evaluation of all prototypes, reflecting on the possibilities of present and future mixed-reality technologies to augment communication.

Audiovisual media is integral to modern living, yet is not always accessible to all. Modern accessibility interventions, such as subtitles, support many, however, communities with complex communication needs are largely unconsidered. In this work, we envision future accessibility interventions from the ground up with one such community – people with aphasia. Over two workshops and a probe activity, we problematise the space of audiovisual consumption by people with aphasia, and co-envision directions for development in accessible audiovisual media. From low-fi diegetic prototypes to mid-fidelity solutions, we explore new visions of accessibility interventions for complex communication needs – notably enabling high levels of content manipulation and personalisation. Our findings raise open questions and set directions for the research community in developing accessibility interventions for audiovisual media to support users with diverse needs in accessing audiovisual content.

People living with complex communication needs employ multimodal pathways to communicate including: limited speech, paralinguistics, non-verbal communication and leveraging low-tech devices. However, most augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) interventions undermine end-users’ agency by obstructing these intuitive communication pathways. In this paper, we collaborate with 19 people living with the language impairment aphasia exploring contextual communication challenges, before low-fidelity prototyping and wireframing wearable AAC displays. These activities culminated in two low-input wearable AAC prototypes that instead, scaffold users’ pre-existing communication abilities. Firstly, the InkTalker is a low-power and affordable eInk AAC smartbadge designed to discreetly reveal invisible disabilities and usable as a communication prop. Secondly, WalkieTalkie is a scalable AAC app that converts smartphones into a feature-rich public display operable via multimodal input/outputs. We offer results from communication interactions with both devices, discussions and feedback responses. Participants used both AAC devices to interdependently socialise with others and augment pre-existing communication abilities.

Traditionally, Western philosophies have strongly favoured a dualist interpretation of consciousness – emphasising the importance of the ‘mind’ over the ‘body’. However, we argue that adopted assistive technologies become embodied and extend intentionality within environments. In this paper, we restore an embodied view of the mind to theoretically enhance: understandings of assistive technology and human-human communication. Initially, we explore literature on: phenomenological theories of human experience, post-phenomenological accounts of technology, embodied accounts of assistive technology and participatory design. We then present a case study demonstrating the generative and disruptive effects of the embodied framework for co-designing AAC with people living with aphasia. Our findings show that the embodied framework supports a more multidimensional account of experience and suggests a shift from AAC devices that seek to ‘repair’ users’ speech. Reflecting on our case study, we then outline concerns with nascent technologies that could disembody and limit accessibility.

The presence of audiovisual media is a mainstay in the lives of many, increasingly so with technological progress. Accessing video and audio content, however, can be challenging for people with diverse needs. Existing research has explored a wide range of accessibility challenges and worked with disabled communities to design technologies that help bridge the access gap. Despite this work, our understanding of the challenges faced by communities with complex communication needs (CCNs) remains poor. To address this shortcoming, we present the first study that investigates the viewing experience of people with the communication impairment aphasia through an online survey (N=41) and two focus group sessions (N=10), with the aim of understanding their specific access challenges. We find that aphasia significantly impact viewing experience and present a taxonomy of access barriers and facilitators, with suggestions for future research.

With an ageing population and increased prevalence of people living with complex communication needs there is a growing need to design scalable high-tech augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) apps to support agency and social participation. For end-users it is currently difficult to regulate the prominence of most mainstream high-tech AAC devices and tablet-based apps – they are socially conspicuous, offer poor portability, are aesthetically unconsidered, and obstruct vital non-verbal communication pathways. In response to this, we leverage participatory design techniques to design and evaluate two discreet and inconspicuous AAC smartwatch apps. We engage with a community of people living with the language impairment aphasia, to collaboratively build and iterate both a smartwatch app for ‘public’ communication: Watch Out and ‘private’ cognitive support: Watch In. Following this, we evaluate both apps during an experience prototyping workshop with an actor and subsequent focus group. We report results from communication interactions with both apps, interviews and feedback responses. Participants were not only successful in using both AAC smartwatch apps but, critically, the wearable and discreet intervention did not restrict users’ agency and non-verbal communication.

High-tech augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices can offer vital communication support for those with complex communication needs (CCNs). Unfortunately, these devices are rarely adopted. Abandonment has been linked to many factors – commonly, stigma resulting from the visibility of the device and its intrusion into other essential modes of communication like body language. However, visible AAC is strategically useful for setting conversational expectations. In this work, we explore how we might envision AAC to address these tensions directly. We conduct user-centred design activities to build three high-fidelity AAC prototypes with different communities with CCNs, specialists and stakeholders. The prototypes demonstrate different form factors, visibility and modes of input/output. Subsequently, we conduct two qualitative focus groups using convergent and divergent co-design methods with people with the language impairment aphasia – supporting ideation of seven discreet and wearable low-fidelity AAC prototypes and critique of the three high-fidelity prototypes.

The consumption of digital audiovisual media is a mainstay of many people’s lives. However, people with accessibility needs often have issues accessing this content. With a view to addressing this inequality, there exists a wide range of interventions that researchers have explored to bridge this accessibility gap. Despite this work, our understanding of the capability of these interventions is poor. In this paper, we address this through a systematic review of the literature, creating a dataset of and analysing N = 181 scientific papers. We have found that certain areas have accrued a disproportionate amount of attention from the research community – for example, blind and visually impaired and d/Deaf and hard of hearing people account for of papers (N = 170). We describe challenges researchers have addressed, end-user communities of focus, and interventions examined. We conclude by evaluating gaps in the literature and areas that could use more focus on in the future.

People with complex communication needs (CCNs) can use high-tech augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices and systems to compensate for communication difficulties. While many use AAC effectively, much research has highlighted challenges – for instance, high rates of abandonment and solutions which are not appropriate for their end-users. Presently, we lack a detailed survey of this field to comprehend these shortcomings and understand how the accessibility community might direct its efforts to design more effective AAC. In response to this, we conduct a systematic review and taxonomy of high-tech AAC devices and interventions, reporting results from 562 articles identified in the ACM DL and SCOPUS databases. We provide a taxonomical overview of the current state of AAC devices – e.g. their interaction modalities and characteristics. We describe the communities of focus explored, and the methodological approaches used. We contrast findings in the broader accessibility and HCI literature to delineate future avenues for exploration in light of the current taxonomy, offer a reassessment of the norms and incumbent research methodologies and present a discourse on the communities of focus for AAC and interventions.

People with language impairments, such as aphasia, use a range of total communication strategies. These go beyond spoken language to include non-verbal utterances, props and gestures. The uptake of videoconferencing platforms necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic means that people with aphasia now use these communication strategies online. However, no data exists on the impact of videoconferencing on communication for this population. Working with an aphasia charity that moved its conversation support sessions online, we investigated the experience of communication via a videoconferencing platform. We report a study which investigated this through: 1) observations of online conversation support sessions; 2) interviews with speech and language therapists and volunteers; and 3) interviews with people with aphasia. Our findings reveal the unique and creative ways that the charity and its members with aphasia adapted their communication to videoconferencing. We unpack specific, novel challenges relating to total communication via videoconferencing and the related impacts on social and privacy issues.

Visual creative forms, such as painting and sculpture, are a common expressive outlet and offer an alternative to language-based expression. They are particularly beneficial for those who find language challenging due to an impairment – for example, people with aphasia. However, being creative with digital platforms can be challenging due to the language-based barriers they impose. In this work, we describe an accessible tool called Inker. Inker supports people with aphasia in accessing digital creativity, supported by previously created physical artistic work.

Creativity and humour allow people to be expressive and to address topics which they might otherwise avoid or find deeply uncomfortable. One such way to express these sentiments is via comics. Comics have a highly-visual format with relatively little language. They therefore offer a promising opportunity for people who experience challenges with language to express creativity and humour. Most comic tools, however, are not accessible to people with language impairments. In this paper we describe Comic Spin, a comic app designed for people with aphasia. Comic Spin builds upon the literature on supporting creativity by constraining the creative space. We report both the design process and the results of a creative workshop where people with aphasia used Comic Spin. Participants were not only successful in using the app, but were able to create a range of narrative, humorous and subversive comics.

Multimedia digital content (combining pictures, text and music) is ubiquitous. The process of creating such content using existing tools typically requires complex, language-laden interactions which pose a challenge for users with aphasia (a language impairment following brain injury). Tangible interactions offer a potential means to address this challenge, however, there has been little work exploring their potential for this purpose. In this paper, we present CreaTable a platform that enables us to explore tangible interaction as a means of supporting digital content creation for people with aphasia. We report details of the co-design of CreaTable and findings from a digital creativity workshop. Workshop findings indicated that CreaTable enabled people with aphasia to create something they would not otherwise have been able to. We report how users' aphasia profiles affected their experience, describe tensions in collaborative content creation and provide insight into more accessible content creation using tangibles.

Touchscreens are the predominant medium for interactions with digital services; however, their current fixed form factor narrows the scope for rich physical interactions by limiting interaction possibilities to a single, planar surface. In this paper we introduce the concept of PickCells, a fully re-configurable device concept composed of cells, that breaks the mould of rigid screens and explores a modular system that affords rich sets of tangible interactions and novel across-device relationships. Through a series of co-design activities -- involving HCI experts and potential end-users of such systems -- we synthesised a design space aimed at inspiring future research, giving researchers and designers a framework in which to explore modular screen interactions. The design space we propose unifies existing works on modular touch surfaces under a general framework and broadens horizons by opening up unexplored spaces providing new interaction possibilities. In this paper, we present the PickCells concept, a design space of modular touch surfaces, and propose a toolkit for quick scenario prototyping.

Personas are powerful tools for designing technology and envisioning its usage. They are widely used to imagine archetypal users around whom to orient design work. We have been exploring co-created personas as a technique to use in co-design with users who have diverse needs. Our vision was that this would broaden the demographic and liberate co-designers of their personal relationship with a health condition. This paper reports three studies where we investigated using co-created personas with people who had Parkinson's disease, dementia or aphasia. Observational data of co-design sessions were collected and analysed. Findings revealed that the co-created personas encouraged users with diverse needs to engage with co-designing. Importantly, they also afforded additional benefits including empowering users within a more accessible design process. Reflecting on the outcomes from the different user groups, we conclude with a discussion of the potential for co-created personas to be applied more broadly.

Creative activities allow people to express themselves in rich, nuanced ways. However, being creative does not always come easily. For example, people with speech and language impairments, such as aphasia, face challenges in creative activities that involve language. In this paper, we explore the concept of constrained creativity as a way of addressing this challenge and enabling creative writing. We report an app, MakeWrite, that supports the constrained creation of digital texts through automated redaction. The app was co-designed with and for people with aphasia and was subsequently explored in a workshop with a group of people with aphasia. Participants were not only successful in crafting novel language, but, importantly, self-reported that the app was crucial in enabling them to do so. We refect on the potential of technology-supported constrained creativity as a means of empowering expression amongst users with diverse needs.

The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) have become widely accepted as the standard for web accessibility evaluation. This poster investigates how the mobile version of these guidelines caters for people with aphasia (PWA) by comparing the results from user testing against that of an audit using the guidelines. We outline the efficacy of the guidelines in the broader context of how they cater for various impairments and offer some recommendations for designing for people with aphasia.

This paper reports the experience of participating in usability testing from the perspective of a person with aphasia. We briefly report adaptations to classic usability testing to enable the participation of people with aphasia. These included the use of short, direct tasks and physical artefacts such as picture cards. Authors of the paper include Ian, a user with aphasia who participated in adapted usability testing and Abi, a speech and language therapist researcher who facilitated sessions. Ian reports that these methods allowed him, as a person with aphasia, to engage with the usability testing process. We argue that such adaptations are essential in order to develop technologies which will be accessible to people with aphasia. This collaborative report provides a case for both how and why these adaptations can be made.

We present Tangible Drops, a visio-tactile display that for the first time provides physical visualization and tactile feedback using a planar liquid interface. It presents digital information interactively by tracing dynamic patterns on horizontal flat surfaces using liquid metal drops on a programmable electrode array. It provides tactile feedback with directional information in the 2D vector plane using linear locomotion and/or vibration of the liquid metal drops. We demonstrate move, oscillate, merge, split and dispense-from-reservoir functions of the liquid metal drops by consuming low power (450 mW per electrode) and low voltage (8--15 V). We report on results of our empirical study with 12 participants on tactile feedback using 8 mm diameter drops, which indicate that Tangible Drops can convey tactile sensations such as changing speed, varying direction and controlled oscillation with no visual feedback. We present the design space and demonstrate the applications of Tangible Drops, and conclude by suggesting potential future applications for the technique.

In this paper, we demonstrate a method for the dynamic 2D transformation of liquid matter and present unique organic animations based on spatio-temporally controlled electric fields. In particular, we deploy a droplet of liquid metal (Gallium indium eutectic alloy) in a 7x7 electrode array prototype system, featuring an integrated image tracking system and a simple GUI. Exploiting the strong dependance of EGaIn's surface tension on external electric voltages, we control multiple electrodes dynamically to manipulate the liquid metal into a fine-grained desired shape. Taking advantage of the high conductivity of liquid metals, we introduce a shape changing, reconfigurable smart circuit as an example of unique applications. We discuss system constraints and the overarching challenge of controlling liquid metals in the presence of phenomena such as splitting, self-electrode interference and finger instabilities. Finally, we reflect on the broader vision of this project and discuss our work in the context of the wider scope of programmable materials.

We present a programmable liquid matter which can dynamically transform its 2D shape into a variety of forms and present unique organic animations based on spatio-temporally controlled electric fields. We deployed a EGaIn (Gallium indium eutectic alloy) liquid metal as our smart liquid material since it features a superior electric conductivity in spite of a liquid state and presents a high dynamic range of surface tension and 2D area controlled by applied voltage strength and polarity. Our proposed liquid metal shape and motion control algorithms with dynamically patterned electric fields realize path tracing organic animation. We demonstrate an interactive 7x7 electrode array control system with a computer vision based GUI system to enable novice users to physically draw alphabet letters and 2D shapes by unique animatronics of liquid metals.

So many people are now using handheld second screens whilst watching TV that application developers and broadcasters are designing companion applications Second screen content that accompanies a TV programme. The nature of such dual-screen use cases inherently causes attention to be split, somewhat unpredictably. Dual-screen complexity, a clear factor in this attention split, is largely unexplored by the literature and will have an unknown (and likely negative) impact on user experience (UX). Therefore, we use empirical techniques to investigate the objective and subjective effect of dual-screen visual complexity on attention distribution in a companion content scenario. Our sequence of studies culminates in the deployment of a companion application prototype that supports adjustment of complexity (by either content curator or viewer) to allow convergence on optimum experience. Our findings assist the effective design of dual-screen content, informing content providers how to manage dual second screen complexity for enhanced UX through a more blended, complementary dual-screen experience.

There is increasing interest in providing content to users on secondary devices while they watch TV. This material, termed companion content, can be anything from textual information, to interactive quiz games. It can be delivered throughout a broadcast and often directly relates to specific scenes in a show. This new scenario has exposed a challenging design space for creators of both the content and the enabling technology. A key question when introducing content on a secondary device is how much it detracts from, or enhances, the show the user is currently engaged with. To examine this, we investigated methods for mediating attention from the TV and onto a secondary device. By examining a typical use case we have been able to gain new insights into how best to design additional stimuli to alert users to companion content from both a broadcasting, and an HCI perspective.