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Device and Desktop Accessibility

Mobile and desktop apps have become a key feature of everyday life, with apps for banking, work, entertainment, communication, transportation, and education, to name a few. But many apps remain inaccessible to people with disabilities who use screen readers or other assistive technologies.

Since these findings were published in 2022 by then-Ph.D. student Anne Spencer Ross, CREATE researchers have been working to support automated diagnosis and repair of mobile app accessibility failures for all mobile apps. CREATE faculty are exploring aspects of desktop app accessibility, such as creating better touch screens based on how people with disabilities actually interact and developing Pointing Magnifier, a desktop pointing aid that makes the mouse easier to use for people with limited fine motor function. Ga11y creates GIF annotations and improving the accessibility of animated GIFs. VoxLens is a JavaScript plugin that allows people to interact with visualizations. Visualization designers need only to add a single line of code to implement.

Ga11y improves accessibility of automated GIFs for visually impaired users

Portion of a diagram showing a GIF image and the user's ability to request the GIF annotation on the mobile client via the screen reader,

Animated GIFs, prevalent in social media, texting platforms and websites, often lack adequate alt-text descriptions, resulting in inaccessible GIFs for blind or low-vision (BLV) users and the loss of meaning, context, and nuance in what they read. In an article published in the Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’22), a research team led by CREATE Co-director Jacob O. Wobbrock has demonstrated a system called Ga11y (pronounced “galley”) for creating GIF annotations and improving the accessibility of animated GIFs.

Wobbrock team’s VoxLens allows screen-reader users to interact with data visualizations

A screen reader with a refreshable Braille display. Credit: Elizabeth Woolner/Unsplash

Working with screen-reader users, CREATE Ph.D. graduate Ather Sharif and Co-Director Jacob O. Wobbrock, along with other UW researchers, have designed VoxLens, a JavaScript plugin that allows people to interact with visualizations. To implement VoxLens, visualization designers add just one line of code.

SoundWatch smartwatch app alerts d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing users to sounds

A wrist with a smartwatch on it. The smartwatch has an alert that says "Car honk, 98%, Loud, 101 dB" It also has options to snooze the alert for 10 minutes or open in an app on the user's phone.

UW CREATE Ph.D. graduate Dhruv Jain and faculty members Jon Froehlich and Leah Findlater have helped develop a smartwatch app for d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing people who want to be aware of nearby sounds. The smartwatch will identify sounds the user is interested in — such as a siren, a water faucet left on, or a bird chirping — and send the user a friendly buzz along with information.

“This technology provides people with a way to experience sounds that require an action… [and] these devices can also enhance people’s experiences and help them feel more connected to the world,” said lead author , a UW doctoral student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering.

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