Envisioning the (In)Visibility of Discreet and Wearable AAC Devices

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 - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85160017534

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 -