Xianjing Han, Bin Zhu, Shiqi Hu, Franklin Mingzhe Li, Patrick Carrington, Roger Zimmermann, Jingjing Chen. Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers). 2026.

Research in social accessibility aims to improve the lives of disabled people across diverse abilities and experiences by assisting with communication, relationships, and ecosystems of access. We seek to understand this intersectional body of work through analyzing social accessibility research from 2011 to 2025. Through constructivist grounded theory analysis of 90 papers (curated from 605), we develop the Three Praxes Framework: three sites of practice Artifact (constructive), Ecosystem (relational), and Epistemology (theoretical) - two cross-cutting stances toward change (Temporal Orientation and Stakeholder Focus) - and one reflexive cycle modeling how insights can flow between praxes. Our analysis reveals these praxes operate largely in isolation, risking that insights remain academic exercises while assistive technologies reinforce existing barriers. We call on the field to realize a cycle where disabled people's lived experiences shape material realities, material practice generates theoretical knowledge, and both transform ecosystems of access.

Social accessibility research faces a persistent tension: assistive technologies (AT) predominantly pursue independence, yet disabled people’s experiences reveal rich preferences for interdependence. Our analysis of 90 papers from 2011-2025 uncovered that this stems from a deeper issue—which crystallized through dialogue with three bodies of theories: (1) self-determination theory (SDT), (2) symbolic interactionism, and (3) posthumanist perspectives and crip technoscience. SDT illuminates individual needs; symbolic interactionism addresses construction of social meaning and stigma; Posthumanist and crip technoscience together challenges normalcy, governance, and the human-machine boundary. Through their tensions, we identify relational sovereignty as an alternative telos—or goal—to autonomy. While our corpus equates autonomy with independence, sovereignty centers the power to choose between independence and interdependence. To operationalize this shift—from “Can they do it?” to “Do they get to decide?”— we introduce the Relational Sovereignty Matrix and four design interventions: (1) a sovereignty-centered reframing of SDT, (2) generative questions for justice-oriented reflection, (3) the idea of building through sovereign technical primitives, and (4) explicit consideration of power in AT design.

Ableist microaggressions remain pervasive in everyday interactions, yet interventions to help people recognize them are limited. We present an experiment testing how AI-mediated dialogue influences recognition of ableism. 160 participants completed a pre-test, intervention, and a post-test across four conditions: AI nudges toward bias (Bias-Directed), inclusion (Neutral-Directed), unguided dialogue (Self-Directed), and a text-only non-dialogue (Reading). Participants rated scenarios on standardness of social experience and emotional impact; those in dialogue-based conditions also provided qualitative reflections. Quantitative results showed dialogue-based conditions produced stronger recognition than Reading, though trajectories diverged: biased nudges improved differentiation of bias from neutrality but increased overall negativity. Inclusive or no nudges remained more balanced, while Reading participants showed weaker gains and even declines. Qualitative findings revealed biased nudges were often rejected, while inclusive nudges were adopted as scaffolding. We contribute a validated vignette corpus, an AI-mediated intervention platform, and design implications highlighting trade-offs conversational systems face when integrating bias-related nudges.

On-demand, last-mile delivery -- the transportation of goods from a local distribution center to the customer's door within a specified time window -- is used by people with disabilities (PwDs) for a variety of reasons. While delivery robots have potential in this space, they often widen disparities in access for PwDs. Inspired by the concept of pluriversality, which embraces the diversity of worldviews, we facilitated participatory design workshops with PwDs to co-design accessible and equitable delivery robots. Our findings support the importance of delivery robots with varied form factors that are robust and customizable to support diverse PwDs and their respective needs and preferences. We also provide broader considerations for automation in delivery ecosystems.

Makeup plays a vital role in self-expression, identity, and confidence -yet remains an underexplored domain for assistive technology, especially for people with vision impairments.While existing tools support isolated tasks such as color identification or product labeling, they rarely address the procedural complexity of makeup routines: coordinating step sequences, managing product placement, and assessing the final look with accessible feedback.To understand the real-world process, we conducted a contextual inquiry with 15 visually impaired makeup users, capturing real-time makeup application behaviors and their step-by-step information needs and assessment approaches.Our findings reveal embodied, tactile-first strategies; persistent challenges in blending, symmetry, and assessment; and a desire for honest, real-time, goal-aligned feedback.We also interviewed five professional makeup artists, who reviewed participant makeup videos and provided expert responses to participant-raised questions and assessment practices.We contribute a taxonomy of feedback needs in non-visual makeup, and outline design implications for future assistive systems -emphasizing hands-free, conversational interaction and context-aware, procedural support for expressive and independent beauty practices.

This paper presents an analytic autoethnography of three accessibility research projects, MouseClicker, Virtual Steps, and Simulated Conversations, led by the first author, a disabled researcher with Spinal Muscular Atrophy.Each project emerged from personal need and embodied experience, and together they explore new possibilities in accessible interaction, sensation, and social engagement.Drawing from feminist HCI, crip technoscience, and design justice, we argue that designing through disability is not simply a methodological stance but a form of epistemic resistance.We show how emotional labor, insider knowledge, and lived specificity can generate design insights that challenge normative assumptions about simplicity, generalizability, and what disabled users should want.Our contributions include: (1) documenting three disabilitycentered design interventions; (2) surfacing cross-cutting themes of agency, emotional labor, and epistemic friction; and (3) offering implications for reframing accessibility research as an inclusive, reflexive, and justice-oriented practice.This report invites the HCI community to recognize lived experience not as anecdotal, but as rigorous situated knowledge essential to equitable design.

From curating the layout of a resume to selecting filters for social media, creating and configuring visual content allows individuals to express identity, communicate intent, and engage socially, yet blind individuals often face significant barriers to such expressive practices.Prior accessibility research primarily addresses functional content configuration, leaving little understanding of blind individuals' expressive visual creation needs.To better understand and support these needs, we conducted a two-stage study: first, we interviewed 10 blind participants to understand their motivations, current practices, and barriers in visual expression, and to ideate on potential visual editing support; second, based on interview insights, we developed an interactive prototype (VizXpress) that provides real-time feedback on visual aesthetics using a vision-language model and supports automated and manual visual editing controls.We used VizXpress as a design probe to further explore accessible design opportunities for visual expression.Our findings highlight many blind users' strong interest in creating visually expressive content, nuanced informational requirements for subjective aesthetics (e.g., color, mood, lighting), and ongoing accessibility challenges with visual creative tools.Grounded in these insights, we propose design implications including richer aesthetic feedback, controlled intelligent editing, and accessible manual editing mechanisms.

Videos offer rich audiovisual information that can support people in performing activities of daily living (ADLs), but they remain largely inaccessible to blind or low-vision (BLV) individuals.In cooking, BLV people often rely on non-visual cues-such as touch, taste, and smell-to navigate their environment, making it difficult to follow UIST '25, September 28-October 01, 2025, Busan, Republic of Korea Ning et al.the predominantly audiovisual instructions found in video recipes.To address this problem, we introduce Aroma, an AI system that provides timely responses to the user based on real-time, contextaware assistance by integrating non-visual cues perceived by the user, a wearable camera feed, and video recipe content.Aroma uses a mixed-initiative approach: it responds to user requests while also proactively monitoring the video stream to offer timely alerts and guidance.This collaborative design leverages the complementary strengths of the user and AI system to align the physical environment with the video recipe, helping the user interpret their current state and make sense of the steps.We evaluated Aroma through a study with eight BLV participants and offered insights for designing interactive AI systems to support BLV individuals in performing ADLs.

This paper explores new ways to support blind and low vision (BLV) game stream participants. Prior work on game-aware streaming systems has focused on the potential for viewer interaction and personalization for sighted viewers, but how such systems impact interaction and personalization for BLV viewers remains largely unexplored. Most streaming experiences have significant visual information but no non-visual or sensemaking alternatives, which can exclude BLV viewers from understanding and interacting with the streaming experience. Building on the pre-existing system MARS, we developed a design probe that makes game data available to stream viewers in personalizable visual and non-visual formats. We use this probe to investigate the needs of BLV game stream viewers through qualitative interviews and live prototype testing sessions on Twitch. In addition to the technical contributions of our probe, our work addresses how game-aware streaming technologies can align with the needs and motivations of BLV viewers, and paves the way for novel designs in future iterations of game-aware streaming technologies.

Despite researchers having extensively studied various ways to track body pose on-the-go, most prior work does not take into account wheelchair users, leading to poor tracking performance. Wheelchair users could greatly benefit from this pose information to prevent injuries, monitor their health, identify environmental accessibility barriers, and interact with gaming and VR experiences. In this work, we present WheelPoser, a real-time pose estimation system specifically designed for wheelchair users. Our system uses only four strategically placed IMUs on the user’s body and wheelchair, making it far more practical than prior systems using cameras and dense IMU arrays. WheelPoser is able to track a wheelchair user’s pose with a mean joint angle error of 14.30° and a mean joint position error of 6.74 cm, more than three times better than similar systems using sparse IMUs. To train our system, we collect a novel WheelPoser-IMU dataset, consisting of 167 minutes of paired IMU sensor and motion capture data of people in wheelchairs, including wheelchair-specific motions such as propulsion and pressure relief. Finally, we explore the potential application space enabled by our system and discuss future opportunities. Open-source code, models, and dataset can be found here: https://github.com/axle-lab/WheelPoser.

Cooking is an essential activity that enhances quality of life by enabling individuals to prepare their own meals. However, cooking often requires multitasking between cooking tasks and following instructions, which can be challenging to cooks with vision impairments if recipes or other instructions are inaccessible. To explore the practices and challenges of recipe access while cooking, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 people with vision impairments who have cooking experience and four cooking instructors at a vision rehabilitation center. We also asked participants to edit and give feedback on existing recipes. We revealed unique practices and challenges to accessing recipe information at different cooking stages, such as the heavy burden of hand-washing to interact with recipe readers. We also presented the preferred information representation and structure of recipes. We then highlighted design features of technological supports that could facilitate the development of more accessible kitchen technologies for recipe access. Our work contributes nuanced insights and design guidelines to enhance recipe accessibility for people with vision impairments.

Autistic adults often experience stigma and discrimination at work, leading them to seek social communication support from coworkers, friends, and family despite emotional risks. Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly considered an alternative. In this work, we investigate the phenomenon of LLM use by autistic adults at work and explore opportunities and risks of LLMs as a source of social communication advice. We asked 11 autistic participants to present questions about their own workplace-related social difficulties to (1) a GPT-4-based chatbot and (2) a disguised human confederate. Our evaluation shows that participants strongly preferred LLM over confederate interactions. However, a coach specializing in supporting autistic job-seekers raised concerns that the LLM was dispensing questionable advice. We highlight how this divergence in participant and practitioner attitudes reflects existing schisms in HCI on the relative privileging of end-user wants versus normative good and propose design considerations for LLMs to center autistic experiences.

Individuals with vision impairments employ a variety of strategies for object identification, such as pans or soy sauce, in the culinary process. In addition, they often rely on contextual details about objects, such as location, orientation, and current status, to autonomously execute cooking activities. To understand how people with vision impairments collect and use the contextual information of objects while cooking, we conducted a contextual inquiry study with 12 participants in their own kitchens. This research aims to analyze object interaction dynamics in culinary practices to enhance assistive vision technologies for visually impaired cooks. We outline eight different types of contextual information and the strategies that blind cooks currently use to access the information while preparing meals. Further, we discuss preferences for communicating contextual information about kitchen objects as well as considerations for the deployment of AI-powered assistive technologies.

Acquiring accessibility information about unfamiliar places in advance is essential for wheelchair users to make better decisions about physical visits. Today’s assessment approaches such as phone calls, photos/videos, or 360° virtual tours often fall short of providing the specific accessibility details needed for individual differences. For example, they may not reveal crucial information like whether the legroom underneath a table is spacious enough or if the spatial configuration of an appliance is convenient for wheelchair users. In response, we present Embodied Exploration, a Virtual Reality (VR) technique to deliver the experience of a physical visit while keeping the convenience of remote assessment. Embodied Exploration allows wheelchair users to explore high-fidelity digital replicas of physical environments with themselves embodied by avatars, leveraging the increasingly affordable VR headsets. With a preliminary exploratory study, we investigated the needs and iteratively refined our techniques. Through a real-world user study with six wheelchair users, we found Embodied Exploration is able to facilitate remote and accurate accessibility assessment. We also discuss design implications for embodiment, safety, and practicality.

Upper extremity (UE) health issues are a common concern among wheelchair users and have a large impact on their independence, social participation, and quality of life. However, despite the well-documented prevalence and negative impacts, these issues remain unresolved. Existing solutions (e.g. surgical repair, conservative treatments) often fail to promote sustained UE health improvement in wheelchair users’ day-to-day lives. Recent HCI research has shown the effectiveness of health tracking technologies in supporting patients’ self-care for different health conditions (e.g. chronic diseases, mental health). In this work, we explore how health tracking technologies could support wheelchair users’ UE health self-care. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 wheelchair users and 5 therapists to understand their practices and challenges in UE health management, as well as the potential benefits of integrating health tracking technologies into self-care routines. We discuss design implications for UE health tracking technologies and outline opportunities for future investigation.

Visual arts play an important role in cultural life and provide access to social heritage and self-enrichment, but most visual arts are inaccessible to blind people. Researchers have explored different ways to enhance blind people’s access to visual arts (e.g., audio descriptions, tactile graphics). However, how blind people adopt these methods remains unknown. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 blind visual arts patrons to understand how they engage with visual artwork and the factors that influence their adoption of visual arts access methods. We further examined interview insights in a follow-up survey (N=220). We present: 1) current practices and challenges of accessing visual artwork in-person and online (e.g., Zoom tour), 2) motivation and cognition of perceiving visual arts (e.g., imagination), and 3) implications for designing visual arts access methods. Overall, our findings provide a roadmap for technology-based support for blind people’s visual arts experiences.

Autonomous navigation on wheelchairs promises to be a significant frontier in the evolution of the power wheelchair as an assistive enabling device, and is increasingly explored among researchers for its potential to unlock more accessible navigation for wheelchair users. While developments on path-planning methods for wheelchairs is ongoing, there is a relative paucity of research on autonomous wheelchair navigation experiences which accommodate potential users’ needs. In this work, we present preliminary design considerations for the user experience for autonomous wheelchair navigation derived from a semi-structured interview with ten (10) current wheelchair users about their willingness to use and applicability of an autonomous navigation function. From this, nine (9) expressed a willingness to use autonomous navigation in the near future in a range of contexts, while expressing attitudes like expectations, concerns, and motivations for intent to use. To better understand the impetus for such attitudes, we conducted thematic analysis to reveal three high-order factors and associated qualities which together serve as a framework to help understand participants’ intent. Finally, we highlight three critical areas of focus to highlight opportunities and challenges for developers of a user-centered autonomous navigation experience for wheelchairs.

Many people with upper-body motor impairments encounter challenges while performing Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs), such as toileting, grooming, and managing finances, which have impacts on their Quality of Life (QOL). Although existing assistive technologies enable people with upper-body motor impairments to use different input modalities to interact with computing devices independently (e.g., using voice to interact with a computer), many people still require Personal Care Assistants (PCAs) to perform ADLs. Multimodal input has the potential to enable users to perform ADLs without human assistance. We conducted 12 semi-structured interviews with people who have upper-body motor impairments to capture their existing practices and challenges of performing ADLs, identify opportunities to expand the input possibilities for assistive devices, and understand user preferences for multimodal interaction during everyday tasks. Finally, we discuss implications for the design and use of multimodal input solutions to support user independence and collaborative experiences when performing daily living tasks.

Makeup and cosmetics offer the potential for self-expression and the reshaping of social roles for visually impaired people. However, there exist barriers to conducting a beauty regime because of the reliance on visual information and color variances in makeup. We present a content analysis of 145 YouTube videos to demonstrate visually impaired individuals’ unique practices before, during, and after doing makeup. Based on the makeup practices, we then conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 visually impaired people to discuss their perceptions of and challenges with the makeup process in more depth. Overall, through our findings and discussion, we present novel perceptions of makeup from visually impaired individuals (e.g., broader representations of blindness and beauty). The existing challenges provide opportunities for future research to address learning barriers, insufficient feedback, and physical and environmental barriers, making the experience of doing makeup more accessible to people with visual impairments.

Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) audiences have long complained about caption qualities for many online videos created by individual content creators on video-sharing platforms (e.g., YouTube). However, there lack explorations of practices, challenges, and perceptions of online video captions from the perspectives of both individual content creators and DHH audiences. In this work, we first explore DHH audiences' feedback on and reactions to YouTube video captions through interviews with 13 DHH individuals, and uncover DHH audiences' experiences, challenges, and perceptions on watching videos created by individual content creators (e.g., manually added caption tags could create additional confidence and trust in caption qualities for DHH audiences). We then discover individual content creators' practices, challenges, and perceptions on captioning their videos (e.g., back-captioning problems) by conducting a YouTube video analysis with 189 captioning-related YouTube videos, followed by a survey with 62 individual content creators. Overall, our findings provide an in-depth understanding of captions generated by individual content creators and bridge the knowledge gap mutually between content creators and DHH audiences on captions.

Over the past several years, micromobility devices—small-scale, networked vehicles used to travel short distances—have begun to pervade cities, bringing promises of sustainable transportation and decreased congestion. Though proponents herald their role in offering lightweight solutions to disconnected transit, smart scooters and autonomous delivery robots increasingly occupy pedestrian pathways, reanimating tensions around the right to public space. Drawing on interviews with disabled activists, government officials, and commercial representatives, we chart how devices and policies co-evolve to fulfill municipal sustainability goals, while creating obstacles for people with disabilities whose activism has long resisted inaccessible infrastructure. We reflect on efforts to redistribute space, institute tech governance, and offer accountability to those who involuntarily encounter interventions on the ground. In studying micromobility within spatial and political context, we call for the HCI community to consider how innovation transforms as it moves out from centers of development toward peripheries of design consideration.

A recent surge in sensing platforms for sports has been accompanied by drastic improvements in the quality of data analytics. This improved quality has catalyzed notable progress in training techniques, athletic performance tracking, real-time strategy management, and even better refereeing. However, despite a sustained growth in the number of para-athletes, there has been little exploration into the accessibility and data analytics needs for adaptive sports. We interviewed 18 participants in different roles (athletes, coaches, and high-performance managers) across six adaptive sports. We probed them on their current practices, existing challenges, and analytical needs. We uncovered common themes prevalent across all six sports and further examined findings in three groups: (1) blind sports; (2) wheelchair sports; and (3) adaptive sports with high equipment. Our study highlights the challenges faced by different adaptive sports and unearths opportunities for future research to improve accessibility and address specific needs for each sport.

The reliance on vision for tasks related to cooking and eating healthy can present barriers to cooking for oneself and achieving proper nutrition. There has been little research exploring cooking practices and challenges faced by people with visual impairments. We present a content analysis of 122 YouTube videos to highlight the cooking practices of visually impaired people, and we describe detailed practices for 12 different cooking activities (e.g., cutting and chopping, measuring, testing food for doneness). Based on the cooking practices, we also conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 visually impaired people who have cooking experience and show existing challenges, concerns, and risks in cooking (e.g., tracking the status of tasks in progress, verifying whether things are peeled or cleaned thoroughly). We further discuss opportunities to support the current practices and improve the independence of people with visual impairments in cooking (e.g., zero-touch interactions for cooking). Overall, our findings provide guidance for future research exploring various assistive technologies to help people cook without relying on vision.

User-generated videos are an increasingly important source of information online, yet most online videos are inaccessible to blind and visually impaired (BVI) people. To find videos that are accessible, or understandable without additional description of the visual content, BVI people in our formative studies reported that they used a time-consuming trial-and-error approach: clicking on a video, watching a portion, leaving the video, and repeating the process. BVI people also reported video accessibility heuristics that characterize accessible and inaccessible videos. We instantiate 7 of the identified heuristics (2 audio-related, 2 video-related, and 3 audio-visual) as automated metrics to assess video accessibility. We collected a dataset of accessibility ratings of videos by BVI people and found that our automatic video accessibility metrics correlated with the accessibility ratings (Adjusted R2 = 0.642). We augmented a video search interface with our video accessibility metrics and predictions. BVI people using our augmented video search interface selected an accessible video more efficiently than when using the original search interface. By integrating video accessibility metrics, video hosting platforms could help people surface accessible videos and encourage content creators to author more accessible products, improving video accessibility for all.

Tactile guiding surfaces in the built environment have held a contentious place in the process of navigation by people who are blind or visually impaired. Despite standards for tactile guiding surfaces, problems persist with inconsistent implementation, perception, and geographic orientation. We investigate the role of tactile cues in non-visual navigation and attitudes surrounding guiding surfaces through a survey of 67 people with vision impairments and ten interviews with navigation and public accessibility experts. Our participants revealed several opportunities to augment existing tactile surfaces while envisioning novel multimodal feedback solutions in immediately relevant contexts. We also propose an approach for designing and exploring low cost, multimodal tactile surfaces, which we call navtiles. Finally, we discuss practical aspects of implementation for new design alternatives such as standardization, installation, movability, discoverability, and a need for transparency. Collectively, these insights contribute to the production and implementation of novel multimodal navigation aids.

Social media platforms are integral to public and private discourse, but are becoming less accessible to people with vision impairments due to an increase in user-posted images. Some platforms (i.e. Twitter) let users add image descriptions (alternative text), but only 0.1% of images include these. To address this accessibility barrier, we created Twitter A11y, a browser extension to add alternative text on Twitter using six methods. For example, screenshots of text are common, so we detect textual images, and create alternative text using optical character recognition. Twitter A11y also leverages services to automatically generate alternative text or reuse them from across the web. We compare the coverage and quality of Twitter A11y's six alt-text strategies by evaluating the timelines of 50 self-identified blind Twitter users. We find that Twitter A11y increases alt-text coverage from 7.6% to 78.5%, before crowdsourcing descriptions for the remaining images. We estimate that 57.5% of returned descriptions are high-quality. We then report on the experiences of 10 participants with visual impairments using the tool during a week-long deployment. Twitter A11y increases access to social media platforms for people with visual impairments by providing high-quality automatic descriptions for user-posted images.

Images on social media platforms are inaccessible to people with vision impairments due to a lack of descriptions that can be read by screen readers. Providing accurate alternative text for all visual content on social media is not yet feasible, but certain subsets of images, such as internet memes, offer affordances for automatic or semi-automatic generation of alternative text. We present two methods for making memes accessible semi-automatically through (1) the generation of rich alternative text descriptions and (2) the creation of audio macro memes. Meme authors create alternative text templates or audio meme templates, and insert placeholders instead of the meme text. When a meme with the same image is encountered again, it is automatically recognized from a database of meme templates. Text is then extracted and either inserted into the alternative text template or rendered in the audio template using text-to-speech. In our evaluation of meme formats with 10 Twitter users with vision impairments, we found that most users preferred alternative text memes because the description of the visual content conveys the emotional tone of the character. As the preexisting templates can be automatically matched to memes using the same visual image, this combined approach can make a large subset of images on the web accessible, while preserving the emotion and tone inherent in the image memes.

Twitter is integral to many people's lives for news, entertainment, and communication. While people increasingly post images to Twitter, a large majority of images remain inaccessible to people with vision impairments due to a lack of image descriptions (i.e. alternative text). We present Twitter A11y (pronounced ally), a browser extension to make images accessible through a set of strategies tailored to the platform. For example, screenshots of text that exceed the Twitter character limit are common, so we detect textual images, and automatically add alternative text using optical character recognition. Tweet images apart from screenshots and link previews receive descriptions from crowd workers. Based on an evaluation of the timelines of 50 self-identified blind Twitter users, Twitter A11y increases automatic alt text coverage from 2.6% to 25.6%, before crowdsourcing the remaining images.

Consumer-fabrication technologies potentially improve the effectiveness and adoption of assistive technology (AT) by engaging AT users in AT creation. However, little is known about the role of clinicians in this revolution. We investigate clinical AT fabrication by working as expert fabricators for clinicians over a four-month period. We observed and co-designed AT with four occupational therapists at two clinics: a free clinic for uninsured clients, and a Veteran's Affairs Hospital. We find that existing fabrication processes, particularly with respect to rapid prototyping, do not align with clinical practice and itsdo-no-harm ethos. We recommend software solutions that would integrate into client care by: amplifying clinicians' expertise, revealing appropriate fabrication opportunities, and supporting adaptable fabrication.

To make images on Twitter and other social media platforms accessible to screen reader users, image descriptions (alternative text) need to be added that describe the information contained within the image. The lack of alternative text has been an enduring accessibility problem since the “alt” attribute was added in HTML 2.0 over 20 years ago, and the rise of user-generated content has only increased the number of images shared. As of 2016, Twitter provides users the ability to turn on a feature that allows descriptions to be added to images in their tweets, presumably in an effort to combat this accessibility problem. What has remained unknown is whether simply enabling users to provide alternative text has an impact on experienced accessibility. In this paper, we present a study of 1.09 million tweets with images, finding that only 0.1% of those tweets included descriptions. In a separate analysis of the timelines of 94 blind Twitter users, we found that these image tweets included descriptions more often. Even users with the feature turned on only write descriptions for about half of the images they tweet. To better understand why users provide alternative text descriptions (or not), we interviewed 20 Twitter users who have written image descriptions. Users did not remember to add alternative text, did not have time to add it, or did not know what to include when writing the descriptions. Our findings indicate that simply making it possible to provide image descriptions is not enough, and reveal future directions for automated tools that may support users in writing high-quality descriptions.

Sports are increasingly data-driven. Athletes use a variety of physical activity monitors to capture their movements, improve performance, and achieve excellence. To understand how wheelchair athletes want to use and share their activity data, we conducted a study using a prototype wheelchair fitness tracking device, which served as a probe to facilitate discussions. We interviewed 15 wheelchair basketball players about the use of performance data in the context of wheelchair basketball, and we discuss several implications for using and sharing automatically-tracked data. We find that the wheelchair basketball community is less concerned about the privacy of their data, and, in contrast to health data, athletes are motivated by competition. We conclude with a set of design opportunities that leverage digitized performance metrics within wheelchair basketball, which could apply to the broader wheelchair and adaptive athletics community.

Wearable fitness devices have demonstrated the capacity to improve overall fitness and athletic performance. Previous research has identified a need for these technologies to take into consideration a broader range of abilities to create more inclusive fitness communities. The adaptive sports community offers opportunities to explore technology use within a specialized community wherein physical activity is central to its identity. In this paper, we explore the current use and future potential of fitness technologies for stamina and fatigue management in wheelchair basketball, a team-based sport originally created for paraplegic athletes. We present findings from observations, seven interviews, and a survey (76 responses) with wheelchair basketball players and coaches. We present findings relating to their experience with and interest in automatic tracking of fatigue and stamina related metrics for themselves and their players.

Wearable fitness devices have demonstrated the capacity to improve overall physical activity, which can lead to physical and mental health improvements as well as quality of life gains. Although wheelchair athletes who participate in adaptive sports are interested in using wearable fitness trackers to capture their activity, we have observed low adoption of wearable fitness trackers among wheelchair athletes. We interviewed five wheelchair athletes and three physical and occupational therapists to explore fitness activities, experience with wearable technology, and potential uses for wearable fitness devices. None of the wheelchair athletes we interviewed had previously used any wearable fitness devices, however four out of five were interested in tracking their physical activity. We present five thematic areas helpful for thinking about wearable computing systems and accessibility challenges that arise based on incorrect assumptions about the athletic community. We highlight opportunities for improving the impact and accessibility of fitness tracking technologies for wheelchair athletes. These opportunities include improving the analysis of data from existing sensors, instrumenting the custom equipment used by adaptive sport athletes, and revising the language used in the presentation of fitness data to create a more inclusive community of users.

Interacting with touch screen-based computing devices can be difficult for individuals with mobility impairments that affect their hands, arms, neck, or head. These problems may be especially difficult for power wheelchair users, as the frame of their wheelchair may obstruct the users' range of motion and reduce their ability to reach objects in the environment. The concept of chairable input devices refers to input devices that are designed to fit with the form of an individual's wheelchair, much like wearable technology fits with an individual's clothing. In this paper, we introduce a new chairable input device, the Gest-Rest, which provides a pressure-sensitive input surface that fits over a standard power wheelchair armrest. The Gest-Rest enables users to perform traditional touch screen gestures, such as press and flick, as well as pressure-based gestures such as squeezing and punching. The Gest-Rest enables multiple inputs, unlike most switches, and does not substantially change the shape of the wheelchair armrest. We present a formative evaluation in which nine wheelchair users and three clinicians tested multiple gestures using the Gest-Rest prototype, and provided recommendations for integrating the Gest-Rest with computing applications. Our study showed that our motor impaired participants were each able to perform multiple gestures using the prototype, but had some difficulty with the pre-set sensitivity settings, and would thus benefit from a more robust gesture recognizer.

Power wheelchair users often use and carry multiple mobile computing devices. Many power wheelchair users have some upper body motor impairment that can make using these devices difficult. We believe that mobile device accessibility could be improved through designs that take into account users' functional abilities and take advantage of available space around the wheelchair itself. In this paper we present findings from multiple design sessions and interviews with 13 power wheelchair users and 30 clinicians, exploring the placement and form factor possibilities for input and output on a power wheelchair. We found that many power wheelchair users could benefit from chairable technology that is designed to work within the workspace of the wheelchair, whether worn on the body or mounted on he wheelchair frame. We present participants' preferences for chairable input and output devices, and identify possible design configurations for wearable and chairable devices.

People with motor impairments experience a range of challenges when interacting with computers. While much prior research has explored the effects of motor impairments on accessing computer input devices, such as keyboards, mice, and touch screens, we know relatively little about how real world use of a wheelchair affects why people in power wheelchairs choose specific computing devices, and how they switch between such devices. We interviewed 8 power wheelchair users about their use of computers and mobile devices. We found that participants often had difficulty switching between the various devices in their life, and that technology use was especially challenging on the go. Our findings suggest that there are numerous opportunities to make computing more wheelchair-friendly, by consolidating devices, improving reachability and portability of devices, and by creating technology that is robust to the challenges of moving around in a wheelchair.