Interest in learning American Sign Language (ASL) is growing across higher education institutions in North America, as reflected in rising enrollments. Yet this growth is constrained by limited program availability and few opportunities to practice outside the classroom. AI-based technologies show promise for supporting ASL learning, but educators – who bring essential pedagogical, linguistic, and cultural expertise – have been largely absent from conversations on the design of these tools, with prior work focusing primarily on learners. To address this, we conducted formative interviews with eleven Deaf and one hearing ASL instructor, followed by two focus groups with six Deaf educators, to examine how AI tools could support ASL education. Findings revealed priorities for technology design and considerations for integration into existing pedagogical practices, with attention to curricular, linguistic, and access factors. We offer insights for designing and researching technologies aimed at (1) providing adaptive, structured feedback on signing performance and (2) supporting immersive conversational practice with virtual signing partners.

Cultural background influences aesthetic web design preferences, and aesthetic design impacts accessible design. However, limited research has focused on this intersection of cultural background and accessible web design. With the majority of HCI and design resources originating from the Global North, we investigated the conflicts experienced due to the cultural background of digital designers from the Global South and current web accessibility guidelines. We conducted a design activity and interview study with 10 designers from five countries in the Global South to identify how current web accessibility guidelines conflict with our participants’ cultural design preferences. We found there are specific cultural challenges encountered in accessible web design, both at the design level (e.g., typography and color scheme) and within broader societal contexts (e.g., designer-client interactions). Our paper also offers suggestions from our participants to make the accessible design process more culturally inclusive by improving the web accessibility resources to become culturally customized and engaging more cultural perspectives in accessibility research and education.

Postcolonial and decolonial computing examines how technology design and adoption can perpetuate subtle dimensions of coloniality, under-represent certain regions (e.g., the Global South, non-Western regions, Indigenous societies), and marginalize them. There has been a growing interest in interdisciplinary research focusing on marginalized communities, including accessibility and participatory research. Despite the rapid expansion of accessibility research in the last decades, little focus is placed on accessibility issues within marginalized societies, hindering them from effectively benefiting from accessibility research discussions and outcomes. The accessibility and HCI communities still lack comprehensive knowledge on conducting interdisciplinary research that includes diverse cultures and experiences from some of the systematically marginalized regions. This workshop will explore the intersection of accessibility, HCI, and cross-regional studies, bringing together researchers and practitioners to foster collaborations, identify under-explored research areas, and develop guidelines to support inclusive research practices.

Analyzing dance moves and routines is a foundational step in learning dance. Videos are often utilized at this step, and advancements in machine learning, particularly in human-movement recognition, could further assist dance learners. We developed and evaluated a Wizard-of-Oz prototype of a video comprehension tool that offers automatic in-situ dance move identification functionality. Our system design was informed by an interview study involving 12 dancers to understand the challenges they face when trying to comprehend complex dance videos and taking notes. Subsequently, we conducted a within-subject study with 8 Cuban salsa dancers to identify the benefits of our system compared to an existing traditional feature-based search system. We found that the quality of notes taken by participants improved when using our tool, and they reported a lower workload. Based on participants’ interactions with our system, we offer recommendations on how an AI-powered span-search feature can enhance dance video comprehension tools.

Teaching accessibility is essential in training technologists and designers. However, the topics of accessibility and disability are vast and intersect with culture (social constructions). Since cultural background is an influential factor in design decisions, which could have implications for accessible design, we wanted to understand whether and how courses at U.S. institutions address the importance of cultural influences when teaching accessibility and disability topics. We surveyed 72 students from U.S. institutions and ran 14 follow-up interviews with students who took technical and non-technical courses. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we found similarities and differences in how technical and non-technical courses approach accessibility teaching. We found a lack of cultural focus in accessibility teaching in the technical courses, which can be improved by adopting teaching approaches from non-technical courses. We also make recommendations to improve course design, such as including people from different cultures and disabilities to help develop courses.

The concept “Postcolonial Computing” suggests that the design and use of technology are different based on the culture of the users and designers. Therefore, design methodologies and variances need to be devised and evaluated according to the culture of the audience. Digital accessibility, as a component of design, has become an important topic in the field of HCI, and in my research, I will focus on the impact of cultural differences on “accessible design” in particular. When looking at accessibility on a global scale, we find that the representation of accessibility research is mostly centered in the Global North and the countries that are WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). This suggests a possible cultural bias in accessibility research and accessible design. The focus of my research study will be on Iranian culture, a non-WEIRD country from the Global South with limited accessibility research dedicated to it. I aim to connect with Iranian designers, students, and educators to understand the existing challenges and how accessibility is being considered in design and education, and to come up with improvements in the digital accessibility resources for Iranian designers.

Digital accessibility has become an important topic in the field of HCI, but when looking at accessibility on a global scale, we find that the representation of accessibility research is mostly centered in the Global North with countries that are WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). Our paper explores digital accessibility in Iran, focusing exclusively on its national policies on accessibility. Iran is a non-WEIRD country located in the Global South, with no reports on its digital accessibility status from the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ict). We found that there is not enough focus on accessibility in Iran’s regulations and we conclude our paper by recommending directions for improving this situation such as HCI and disability organizations in Iran cooperating with G3ict.