A glimpse of assistive technology in daily life (2022)

Abstract: Robitaille (2010) wrote ‘if all technology companies have accessibility in their mind then people with disabilities won’t be left behind.’ Current technology has come a long way from where it stood decades ago; however, researchers and manufacturers often do not include people with disabilities in the design process and tend to accommodate them after the fact. In this paper we share feedback from four assistive technology users who rely on one or more assistive technology devices in their everyday lives. We believe end users should be part of the design process and that by bringing together experts and users, we can bridge the research/practice gap.

## introduction despite the advances in the technology, factors such as affordability, access, learning curve, usability and pandemics (e.g. covid-19) can limit who gets to use these at devices @xcite @xcite . we believe involving the users early on in the process of design will help us bridge the gap sooner and better @xcite @xcite . largely, researchers and manufacturers tend to obtain a generic survey of features from a pool of users or involve few users to some depth in the design process. many of these approaches lack in-depth diverse involvement of users. additionally, due to various reasons the information obtained remains within the reaches of the group that is central to the collection. we need an open platform approach to bring together users, scientists, and manufacturers. many existing platforms are scientifically oriented, and we observed that users may not necessarily have scientific evidence to hypotheses to actively participate. therefore, their involvement gets limited to an attendee or spectator or panel member. the goal of this paper is to provide users an opportunity to get involved and actively participate by sharing how some of these at devices have empowered them. we also share some of the unmet challenges that exist in the current technologies. we crafted seven questions that were answered by four users (also co-authors) via email using their respective devices. these simple questions were formulated by a product engineer and a speech-language pathologist who have worked for approximately 5 years with various users of at, and were designed to elicit responses that would highlight the user experience to the forefront of researchers' minds. the questions range from asking users about their experience obtaining their at device (since many devices are not easy and quick to obtain due to their funding process) to how easy or difficult it is to use it (many devices have a complex learning curve. in the next sections we share the feedback from each user word for word as typed using their respective devices. therefore, there may exist typographical and formatting errors. please note, this paper does not intend to analyze any aac device or a company's product. ## discussion the shared direct-from-user responses show that existing at solutions have helped users perform some of the tasks they could not do otherwise, enjoy some of the activities they would have been deprived of, and above all given them back their autonomy and dignity. however, we also recognize that many of these solutions are comprised of multiple incompatible components, not providing an overall solution to their needs and in some cases quite difficult to use thereby limiting the usage. although there are many centers and clinics that offer ways to try out the devices, obtaining a device becomes little difficult due to the expertise involved in finding the right to solution for a given individual e.g., user 3, augie had to consult with different therapists and needed some experiment before finding the right device. additionally, many of these devices require at least some level of training for the care-givers or aids at home, school, or workplace. likewise using these devices to do what an individual would do on their computer or phone has improved over the past few years but often the available features and usability is specific to the type of at device or manufacturer. for example, user 1 amy who uses an eyegaze edge can access internet without much issue whereas augie currently cannot access internet at all. in most cases the respective devices need some kind of intervention by a caregiver or family member e.g., user 4 doug's device would go out of focus and then he is stuck without communication until another individual provides assistance. the responses shared above certainly highlight the positive features of current at devices and how they improve everyday lives. some of these improvements are that users can now access internet, their phones and computers, smart home devices etc. using their at devices. however, these improvements seem like afterthoughts. accommodation for the disability population happens after the actual device or technology has been designed and become mainstream. participants experience a range of ease-of-use with at products, ranging from "easy-to-use" and difficult or complex. all participants were able to identify features in their technology that improved their lives and allowed them to communicate or access communication platforms. participants were also able to identify limits their at devices had, with a majority of participants identifying real-life scenarios where their access to communication or participation were limited. responses also identified challenges with at not always being durable and long-lasting, expensive and requiring assistance from others to set up or maintain use over time. each participant was able to suggest solutions to solve these problems. these themes highlight that at users experience real challenges that spark ideas for possible solutions; also 100% of participants expressed current solutions made possible by the at they use. from these interviews, we would suggest researchers look at asking similar questions to a larger sample size across a wider specrum of at devices (communication, mobility, computer access) to ask and understand, "how can at manufacturers collaborate with at users to innovate functional design? what are ways to improve at ease-of-use, durability, and increase access to communication in text and spoken forms?" we acknowledge not all the issues presented in the user responses are directly related to computational linguistics or natural language processing e.g., a robotic arm looking and feeling more realistic or an eye tracker that would work in the sunlight. however, we believe many of these challenges are multimodal e.g., existing aac devices used via touch/headmouse/switch/gaze are used for communication with another human, with the computer or phone, with the internet. if we could bring at users, nlp experts, computer vision scientists, clinicians, engineers, caregivers, policy-makers and others together we could bridge the research/practice gap sooner and more efficiently. the sample size we present here is small, but we find it significant that each participant was able to share the current limitations of their device and suggestions for improvements; this is where a 'a gap to be bridged' is illustrated by these interviews. we hope this paper is a step forward in bringing the users to the design table and work toward solutions that give them back their autonomy and dignity.