TY - GEN
T1 - Envisioning the (In)Visibility of Discreet and Wearable AAC Devices
AU - Curtis, Humphrey
AU - You, Zihao
AU - Deary, William
AU - Tudoreanu, Miruna-Ioana
AU - Neate, Timothy
N1 - Funding Information:
Many thanks to our focus group participants and Dr Sally McVicker from Aphasia Re-Connect. We would also like to thank Dr Rita Borgo for her support, comments and advice throughout the establishment and writing of the paper. Many thanks to both Dr Alfie Abdul-Rahman and Ms Mubashara Akhtar for their helpful critiques of earlier drafts of this paper. We also thank the anonymous CHI 2023 reviewers for their valuable input. This work was supported in part by a UKRI EPSRC Studentship.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 ACM.
PY - 2023/4/19
Y1 - 2023/4/19
N2 - High-tech augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices can offer vital communication support for those with complex communication needs (CCNs). Unfortunately, these devices are rarely adopted. Abandonment has been linked to many factors – commonly, stigma resulting from the visibility of the device and its intrusion into other essential modes of communication like body language. However, visible AAC is strategically useful for setting conversational expectations. In this work, we explore how we might envision AAC to address these tensions directly. We conduct user-centred design activities to build three high-fidelity AAC prototypes with different communities with CCNs, specialists and stakeholders. The prototypes demonstrate different form factors, visibility and modes of input/output. Subsequently, we conduct two qualitative focus groups using convergent and divergent co-design methods with people with the language impairment aphasia – supporting ideation of seven discreet and wearable low-fidelity AAC prototypes and critique of the three high-fidelity prototypes.
AB - High-tech augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices can offer vital communication support for those with complex communication needs (CCNs). Unfortunately, these devices are rarely adopted. Abandonment has been linked to many factors – commonly, stigma resulting from the visibility of the device and its intrusion into other essential modes of communication like body language. However, visible AAC is strategically useful for setting conversational expectations. In this work, we explore how we might envision AAC to address these tensions directly. We conduct user-centred design activities to build three high-fidelity AAC prototypes with different communities with CCNs, specialists and stakeholders. The prototypes demonstrate different form factors, visibility and modes of input/output. Subsequently, we conduct two qualitative focus groups using convergent and divergent co-design methods with people with the language impairment aphasia – supporting ideation of seven discreet and wearable low-fidelity AAC prototypes and critique of the three high-fidelity prototypes.
KW - AAC
KW - Accessibility
KW - Alternative and Augmentative Communication
KW - Discreet and Wearable Devices
KW - Focus Groups
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85160017534&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3544548.3580936
DO - 10.1145/3544548.3580936
M3 - Conference contribution
BT - Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
A2 - Schmidt, Albrecht
A2 - Väänänen, Kaisa
A2 - Goyal, Tesh
A2 - Kristensson, Per Ola
A2 - Peters, Anicia
A2 - Mueller, Stefanie
A2 - Williamson, Julie R.
A2 - Wilson, Max L.
ER -