A growing body of qualitative research has identified contextual risk factors that elevate people’s chances of experiencing digital-safety attacks. However, the lack of quantitative data on the population-level distribution of these risk factors prevents policymakers and tech companies from developing targeted, evidence-based interventions to improve digital safety. To address this gap, we surveyed 5,001 adults in the United States to analyze: (1) the frequency of and relationship between digital-safety attacks (e.g., scams, harassment, account hacking), and (2) how these attacks align with 10 contextual risk factors. Nearly half of our respondents identify as resource constrained, which significantly correlates with higher likelihood of experiencing four common attacks. We also present qualitative insights to expand our understanding of the factors beyond the existing literature (e.g., “prominence” included high-visibility roles in local communities). This study provides the first large-scale quantitative analysis correlating digital-safety attacks with contextual risk factors and demographics.

Virtual collaboration has transformed how people in mixed-ability teams, composed of disabled and non-disabled people, work together by offering greater flexibility. In these settings, accessibility practices, such as accommodations and inclusive norms, are essential for providing access to disabled people. However, we do not yet know how these practices shape broader facets of teamwork, such as productivity, participation, and camaraderie. To address this gap, we interviewed 18 participants (12 disabled, 6 non-disabled) who are part of mixed-ability teams. We found that beyond providing access, accessibility practices shaped how all participants coordinated tasks, sustained rapport, and negotiated responsibilities. Accessibility practices also introduced camaraderie challenges, such as balancing empathy and accountability. Non-disabled participants described allyship as a learning process and skill shaped by their disabled team members and team culture. Based on our findings, we present recommendations for team practices and design opportunities for virtual collaboration tools that reframe accessibility practices as a foundation for strong teamwork.

Disabled people on social media often experience ableist hate and microaggressions. Prior work has shown that platform moderation often fails to remove ableist hate leaving disabled users exposed to harmful content. This paper examines how personalized moderation can safeguard users from viewing ableist comments. During interviews and focus groups with 23 disabled social media users, we presented design probes to elicit perceptions on configuring their filters of ableist speech (e.g. intensity of ableism and types of ableism) and customizing the presentation of the ableist speech to mitigate the harm (e.g. AI rephrasing the comment and content warnings). We found that participants preferred configuring their filters through types of ableist speech and favored content warnings. We surface participants distrust in AI-based moderation, skepticism in AI's accuracy, and varied tolerances in viewing ableist hate. Finally we share design recommendations to support users' agency, mitigate harm from hate, and promote safety.

Content creators (e.g., gamers, activists, vloggers) with marginalized identities are at-risk of experiencing hate and harassment. This paper examines the ableist hate and harassment that disabled content creators experience on social media. Through surveys (N=50) and interviews (N=20) with disabled creators, we developed a taxonomy of 11 types of ableist hate and harassment (e.g., eugenics-related speech, denial and stigmatization of accessibility) and outlined how ableism harms creators’ well-being and content creation practices. Using statistical modeling, we investigated differences in ableist experiences given creators’ intersecting identities such as race and sexuality. We found that LGBTQ disabled creators face significantly more ableist hate compared to non-LGBTQ disabled creators. Lastly, we discuss our findings through an infrastructure lens to highlight how disabled creators experience platform-enabled ableism, undergo labor to cope with hate, and develop strategies to safeguard against future hate.

While past research has examined older adults’ voice assistant (VA) use, it is unclear whether VAs provide enough value to sustain use when compared to technologies such as smartphones. Research also suggests that barriers around structured command input may limit use. In order to investigate these gaps in adoption, we conducted interviews with ten older adults in a long-term care community who have adopted Alexa devices for at least one year. Participants learned to use Alexa through a training program that encouraged exploration. They used Alexa to complement their daily routines, improve their mood, engage in cognitively stimulating activities, and support socialization with others. We discuss our findings in the context of prior work, describe strategies to promote VA learning and adoption, and present design recommendations to support aging.

Ableist microaggressions are subtle forms of discrimination that disabled people experience daily, perpetuating inequalities and maintaining their ongoing marginalization. Despite the importance of understanding such harms, little work has been done to examine how disabled people are discriminated against online. We address this gap by investigating how disabled people experience ableist microaggressions on social media and how they respond to and cope with these experiences. By conducting interviews with 20 participants with various disabilities, we uncover 12 archetypes of ableist microaggressions on social media, reveal participants’ coping mechanisms, and describe the long-term impact on their wellbeing and social media use. Lastly, we present design recommendations, re-evaluating how social media platforms can mitigate and prevent these harmful experiences.

Response bias has been framed as the tendency of a participant's response to be skewed by a variety of factors, including study design and participant-researcher dynamics. Response bias is a concern for all researchers who conduct studies with people — especially those working with participants with disabilities. This is because these participants’ diverse needs require methodological adjustments and differences in disability identity between the researcher and participant influence power dynamics. Despite its relevance, there is little literature that connects response bias to accessibility. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 27 accessibility researchers on how response bias manifested in their research and how they mitigated it. We present unique instances of response bias and how it is handled in accessibility research; insights into how response bias interacts with other biases like researcher or sampling bias; and philosophies and tensions around response bias such as whether to accept or address it. We conclude with guidelines on thinking about response bias in accessibility research.