Cripping Data Visualizations

Stacy Hsueh, Beatrice Vincenzi, Akshata Murdeshwar, and Marianela Ciolf Felice. 2023. Cripping Data Visualizations: Crip Technoscience as a Critical Lensfor Designing Digital Access. In The 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’23), October 22–25, 2023, New York, NY, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 16 pages. https://doi.org/10. 1145/3597638.3608427

Data visualizations have become the primary mechanism for engaging with quantitative information. However, many of these visualizations are inaccessible to blind and low vision people. This paper investigates the challenge of designing accessible data visualizations through the lens of crip technoscience. We present four speculative design case studies that conceptually explore four qualities of access built on crip wisdom: access as an ongoing process, a frictional practice, an aesthetic experience, and transformation. Each speculative study embodies inquiry and futuring, making visible common assumptions about access and exploring how an alternative crip-informed framework can shape designs that foreground the creativity of disabled people. We end by presenting tactics for designing digital access that de-centers the innovation discourse.

Shaping Lace

Glazko, K., Portnova-Fahreeva, A., Mankoff-Dey, A., Psarra, A., & Mankoff, J. (2024, July). Shaping Lace: Machine embroidered metamaterials. In Proceedings of the 9th ACM Symposium on Computational Fabrication (pp. 1-12).

The ability to easily create embroidered lace textile objects that can be manipulated in structured ways, i.e., metamaterials, could enable a variety of applications from interactive tactile graphics to physical therapy devices. However, while machine embroidery has been used to create sensors and digitally enhanced fabrics, its use for creating metamaterials is an understudied area. This article reviews recent advances in metamaterial textiles and conducts a design space exploration of metamaterial freestanding lace embroidery. We demonstrate that freestanding lace embroidery can be used to create out-of-plane kirigami and auxetic effects. We provide examples of applications of these effects to create a variety of prototypes and demonstrations.

Identifying and improving disability bias in GPT-based resume screening

Glazko, K., Mohammed, Y., Kosa, B., Potluri, V., & Mankoff, J. (2024, June). Identifying and improving disability bias in GPT-based resume screening. In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (pp. 687-700).

As Generative AI rises in adoption, its use has expanded to include domains such as hiring and recruiting. However, without examining the potential of bias, this may negatively impact marginalized populations, including people with disabilities. To address this important concern, we present a resume audit study, in which we ask ChatGPT (specifically, GPT-4) to rank a resume against the same resume enhanced with an additional leadership award, scholarship, panel presentation, and membership that are disability-related. We find that GPT-4 exhibits prejudice towards these enhanced CVs. Further, we show that this prejudice can be quantifiably reduced by training a custom GPTs on principles of DEI and disability justice. Our study also includes a unique qualitative analysis of the types of direct and indirect ableism GPT-4 uses to justify its biased decisions and suggest directions for additional bias mitigation work. Additionally, since these justifications are presumably drawn from training data containing real-world biased statements made by humans, our analysis suggests additional avenues for understanding and addressing human bias.

Towards AI-driven Sign Language Generation with Non-manual Markers

Han Zhang, Rotem Shalev-Arkushin, Vasileios Baltatzis, Connor Gillis, Gierad Laput, Raja Kushalnagar, Lorna Quandt, Leah Findlater, Abdelkareem Bedri, and Colin Lea. 2025. Towards AI-driven Sign Language Generation with Non-manual Markers. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Sign languages are essential for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) community. Sign language generation systems have the potential to support communication by translating from written languages, such as English, into signed videos. However, current systems often fail to meet user needs due to poor translation of grammatical structures, the absence of facial cues and body language, and insufficient visual and motion fidelity. We address these challenges by building on recent advances in LLMs and video generation models to translate English sentences into natural-looking AI ASL signers. The text component of our model extracts information for manual and non-manual components of ASL, which are used to synthesize skeletal pose sequences and corresponding video frames. Our findings from a user study with 30 DHH participants and thorough technical evaluations demonstrate significant progress and identify critical areas necessary to meet user needs.

Jazette Johnson

headshot of Jazette Johnson wearing a white shirt and amber colored blazer. She is smiling warmly.

Jazette Johnson is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Washington’s CREATE (Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences) working with Jen Mankoff. Her research sits at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), accessibility, and health equity. She partners with disabled and historically marginalized communities to explore how technology, particularly generative AI and online platforms, can support inclusive health communication, build trust, and amplify community voice. Jazette’s work is deeply community-engaged, centering co-design, lived experience, and culturally responsive methods to inform the development of accessible, real-world solutions.

Visit Jazette’s homepage at: www.Jazettejohnson.com

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Grace Zhou

A selfie of a college-aged student on a city street. They have straight, reddish-black hair with bangs, and are wearing a black top and a necklace.

Grace is a third-year computer engineering and applied math student at the University of Washington. They are interested in applications of CS towards accessibility, fabrication, and artistic practices. In their free time, they enjoy reading about art history, going to the gym, and painting.

Currently, in the Make4All lab, they are excited to be working on the multi-axis 3D printing project!

Xiaoyi Wang

A young woman with short dark hair stands in front of a campus fountain and a red-brick academic building, wearing a black sweatshirt.

Xiaoyi Wang is a third-year undergraduate studying Computer Science and Mathematics. She is passionate about Robotics, 3D printing, full-stack development, and mathematical modeling.

Sanjana Satagopan

Sanjana is wearing a black dress, looking at the camera, and standing in a field of green grass with brown mountains in the back.

Sanjana Satagopan is a first-year student in computer science at the University of Washington. She has experience programming for various startups, including game development, AI, and full-stack dev. She is excited to learn more about sensors, robotics, and more, and is excited to be finding ways to use technology for accessibility research.

On the side she’s interested in environmentalism and loves tennis and music!

Visit Sanjana’s website here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjanasatagopan/

FabHacks with Everyday Objects

Yuxuan Mei, Benjamin T. Jones, Dan Cascaval, Jennifer Mankoff, Etienne Vouga, Adriana Schulz: FabHacks: Transform Everyday Objects into Home Hacks Leveraging a Solver-aided DSL. SCF 2024: 4

Storing, organizing, and decorating are key parts of making a home nice. Buying new things for these tasks can be expensive, and reuse is better for the planet. One way to do this is with a “home hack.” This is when you use things you already have at home to solve a problem. But creating these hacks can be hard, especially if they are big, need to be nailed or screwed to the wall.

We have a system called FabHacks to help make these home hacks easier to create. It uses a new, hack-specific language we made called FabHaL to help you build these hacks. We looked at home hacks people share online and found ways to connect household items using specific methods. We also have a simple app to help you design such hacks. FabHacks, is based on a solver-aided domain-specific language (S-DSL). It leverages a physics-based solver that finds the expected physical configuration of a hack. We tested FabHacks by having people use our system, and they could easily make and try different designs.

Notably Inaccessible

Venkatesh Potluri, Sudheesh Singanamalla, Nussara Tieanklin, Jennifer Mankoff: Notably Inaccessible – Data Driven Understanding of Data Science Notebook (In)Accessibility. ASSETS 2023: 13:1-13:19

Computational notebooks are tools that help people explore, analyze data, and create stories about that data. They are the most popular choice for data scientists. People use software like Jupyter, Datalore, and Google Colab to work with these notebooks in universities and companies.

There is a lot of research on how data scientists use these notebooks and how to help them work together better. But there is not much information about the problems faced by blind and visually impaired (BVI) users. BVI users have difficulty using these notebooks because:

  • The interfaces are not accessible.
  • The way data is shown is not user-friendly for them.
  • Popular libraries do not provide outputs they can use.

We analyzed 100,000 Jupyter notebooks to find accessibility problems. We looked for issues that affect how these notebooks are created and read. From our study, we give advice on how to make notebooks more accessible. We suggest ways for people to write better notebooks and changes to make the notebook software work better for everyone.