Challenges and Considerations for Accessibility Research Across Cultures and Regions
Authors: 
Laleh Nourian, 
Yulia Goldenberg, Muhammad Adamu, Vikram Kamath Cannanure, Catherine Holloway, 
Neha Kumar, Katharina Reinecke, 
Garreth W. TigwellAuthors Info & Claims
Article No.: 137, Pages 1 - 6
Abstract
Postcolonial and decolonial computing examines how technology design and adoption can perpetuate subtle dimensions of coloniality, under-represent certain regions (e.g., the Global South, non-Western regions, Indigenous societies), and marginalize them. There has been a growing interest in interdisciplinary research focusing on marginalized communities, including accessibility and participatory research. Despite the rapid expansion of accessibility research in the last decades, little focus is placed on accessibility issues within marginalized societies, hindering them from effectively benefiting from accessibility research discussions and outcomes. The accessibility and HCI communities still lack comprehensive knowledge on conducting interdisciplinary research that includes diverse cultures and experiences from some of the systematically marginalized regions. This workshop will explore the intersection of accessibility, HCI, and cross-regional studies, bringing together researchers and practitioners to foster collaborations, identify under-explored research areas, and develop guidelines to support inclusive research practices.
References
[1]
Muhammad Sadi Adamu and Makuochi Samuel Nkwo. 2024. "R̎emembering” as a Decolonial Praxis in African HCI and Design". In Proceedings of the 4th African Human Computer Interaction Conference (East London, South Africa) (AfriCHI ’23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 118–124. https://doi.org/10.1145/3628096.3629045
[2]
Mahdi Nasrullah Al-Ameen, Huzeyfe Kocabas, Swapnil Nandy, and Tanjina Tamanna. 2021. “We, three brothers have always known everything of each other”: A Cross-cultural Study of Sharing Digital Devices and Online Accounts. Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (2021).
[3]
Mahdi Nasrullah Al-Ameen, Tanjina Tamanna, Swapnil Nandy, MA Manazir Ahsan, Priyank Chandra, and Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed. 2020. We don’t give a second thought before providing our information: understanding users’ perceptions of information collection by apps in Urban Bangladesh. In Proceedings of the 3rd ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies. 32–43.
[4]
Zainab AlMeraj, Dari Alhuwail, Rumana Qadri, Shok Shama, and Michael Crabb. 2023. Understanding mindsets, skills, current practices, and barriers of adoption of digital accessibility in Kuwait’s software development landscape. Universal Access in the Information Society (2023), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-023-00980-5
[5]
Giulia Barbareschi, Manohar Swaminathan, Andre Pimenta Freire, and Catherine Holloway. 2021. Challenges and Strategies for Accessibility Research in the Global South: A Panel Discussion. In X Latin American Conference on Human Computer Interaction (Valparaiso, Chile) (CLIHC 2021). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 20, 5 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3488392.3488412
[6]
Giulia Barbareschi, Dafne Zuleima Morgado-Ramirez, Catherine Holloway, Swami Manohar Swaminathan, Aditya Vashistha, and Edward Cutrell. 2021. Disability design and innovation in low resource settings: addressing inequality through HCI. In Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1–5.
[7]
Amanda Baughan, Nigini Oliveira, Tal August, Naomi Yamashita, and Katharina Reinecke. 2021. Do Cross-Cultural Differences in Visual Attention Patterns Affect Search Efficiency on Websites?. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1–12.
[8]
Vikram Kamath Cannanure, Dilrukshi Gamage, Christian Sturm, Heike Winschiers-Theophilus, Juan Fernando Maestre, Naveena Karusala, Pedro Reynolds-Cuéllar, and Neha Kumar. 2021. Decolonizing HCI Across Borders. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3441348
[9]
Vikram Kamath Cannanure, Naveena Karusala, Cuauhtémoc Rivera-Loaiza, Annu Sible Prabhakar, Rama Adithya Varanasi, Anupriya Tuli, Dilrukshi Gamage, Faria Noor, David Nemer, Dipto Das, 2022. HCI across borders: Navigating shifting borders at CHI. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts. 1–5.
[10]
Apala Lahiri Chavan. 2005. Another culture, another method. In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 21. Erlbaum Mahwah, NJ. https://humanfactors.com/downloads/whitepapers/another-culture-another-method.pdf
[11]
Nour Dados and Raewyn Connell. 2012. The global south. Contexts 11, 1 (2012), 12–13.
[12]
Dipto Das, Parboti Roy, Carlos Toxtli, Kagonya Awori Awori, Morgan Vigil-Hayes, Monojit Choudhury, Neha Kumar, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, and Bryan Semaan. 2023. Conceptualizing Indigeneity in Social Computing(CSCW ’23 Companion). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 501–505. https://doi.org/10.1145/3584931.3611286
[13]
Dipto Das and Bryan Semaan. 2022. Decolonial and Postcolonial Computing Research: A Scientometric Exploration. In Companion Publication of the 2022 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (Virtual Event, Taiwan) (CSCW’22 Companion). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 168–174. https://doi.org/10.1145/3500868.3559468
[14]
Anita Ghai, Vidhya Yella Reddy, and Manohar Swaminathan. 2020. Assistive Technology Research and Disability Studies in the Global South: the Need for Synergy. In CHI 2020 Workshop: Nothing About Us Without Us. Investigating the role of critical disability studies in HCI.
[15]
Yulia Goldenberg and Noam Tractinsky. 2021. Towards the Right Direction in BiDirectional User Interfaces. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Yokohama, Japan) (CHI ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 149, 13 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445461
[16]
Yulia Goldenberg and Noam Tractinsky. 2022. Prioritizing UI Items for Bidirectional Design System Development: A Suggested Set of Criteria and Its Implementation(CHI EA ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 340, 8 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519868
[17]
Megan Hofmann, Devva Kasnitz, Jennifer Mankoff, and Cynthia L Bennett. 2020. Living Disability Theory: Reflections on Access, Research, and Design. In Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Virtual Event, Greece) (ASSETS ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 4, 13 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3373625.3416996
[18]
Lilly Irani, Janet Vertesi, Paul Dourish, Kavita Philip, and Rebecca E. Grinter. 2010. Postcolonial Computing: A Lens on Design and Development. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1311–1320. https://doi.org/10.1145/1753326.1753522
[19]
Neha Kumar, Susan M Dray, Christian Sturm, Nithya Sambasivan, Laura S Gaytán-Lugo, Leonel V Morales Diaz, Negin Dahya, and Nova Ahmed. 2017. HCI across borders. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 3065–3072.
[20]
Manoel Victor Rodrigues Leite, Lilian Passos Scatalon, André Pimenta Freire, and Marcelo Medeiros Eler. 2021. Accessibility in the mobile development industry in Brazil: Awareness, knowledge, adoption, motivations and barriers. Journal of Systems and Software 177 (2021), 110942. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2021.110942
[21]
Sebastian Linxen, Christian Sturm, Florian Brühlmann, Vincent Cassau, Klaus Opwis, and Katharina Reinecke. 2021. How WEIRD is CHI?. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’21)(CHI ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445488
[22]
Kelly Mack, Emma McDonnell, Dhruv Jain, Lucy Lu Wang, Jon E. Froehlich, and Leah Findlater. 2021. What do we mean by “accessibility research”? A literature survey of accessibility papers in CHI and ASSETS from 1994 to 2019. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1–18.
[23]
Shakir Mohamed, Marie-Therese Png, and William Isaac. 2020. Decolonial AI: Decolonial theory as sociotechnical foresight in artificial intelligence. Philosophy & Technology 33 (2020), 659–684.
[24]
Dafne Zuleima Morgado-Ramirez, Giulia Barbareschi, Maggie Kate Donovan-hall, Mohammad Sobuh, Nida’ Elayyan, Brenda T Nakandi, Robert Tamale Ssekitoleko, Joyce Olenja, Grace Nyachomba Magomere, Sibylle Daymond, 2020. Disability design and innovation in computing research in low resource settings. In Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility. 1–7.
[25]
Laleh Nourian, Kristen Shinohara, and Garreth Tigwell. 2022. Digital Accessibility in Iran: An Investigation Focusing on Iran’s National Policies on Accessibility and Disability Support. In The 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’22), October 23–26, 2022, Athens, Greece. New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3517428.3550385
[26]
Laleh Nourian, Kristen Shinohara, and Garreth W. Tigwell. 2023. Understanding Discussions Around Culture Within Courses Covering Topics on Accessibility and Disability at U.S. Universities. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Hamburg, Germany) (CHI ’23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 221, 14 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581533
[27]
Joyojeet Pal, Priyank Chandra, Terence O’neill, Maura Youngman, Jasmine Jones, Ji Hye Song, William Strayer, and Ludmila Ferrari. 2016. An accessibility infrastructure for the Global South. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development. 1–11.
[28]
Joyojeet Pal, Anandhi Viswanathan, Priyank Chandra, Anisha Nazareth, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Hariharan Subramonyam, Aditya Johri, Mark S Ackerman, and Sile O’Modhrain. 2017. Agency in assistive technology adoption: visual impairment and smartphone use in Bangalore. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems. 5929–5940.
[29]
Katharina Reinecke and Krzysztof Z Gajos. 2011. One size fits many Westerners: How cultural abilities challenge UI design. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Dynamic Accessibility: Detecting and Accommodating Differences in Ability and Situation at CHI’11. 1–8.
[30]
Mohammad Rashidujjaman Rifat, Ayesha Bhimdiwala, Ananya Bhattacharjee, Amna Batool, Dipto Das, Nusrat Jahan Mim, Abdullah Hasan Safir, Sharifa Sultana, Taslima Akter, C. Estelle Smith, Bryan Semaan, Shaimaa Lazem, Robert Soden, Michael Muller, and Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed. 2023. Many Worlds of Ethics: Ethical Pluralism in CSCW. In Companion Publication of the 2023 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (Minneapolis, MN, USA) (CSCW ’23 Companion). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 490–496. https://doi.org/10.1145/3584931.3611291
[31]
Nithya Sambasivan, Nimmi Rangaswamy, Ed Cutrell, and Bonnie Nardi. 2009. Ubicomp4D: infrastructure and interaction for international development–the case of urban indian slums. In Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Ubiquitous computing. 155–164.
[32]
Reem Talhouk, Lizzie Coles-Kemp, Rikke Bjerg Jensen, Madeline Balaam, Andrew Garbett, Hala Ghattas, Vera Araujo-Soares, Balsam Ahmad, and Kyle Montague. 2020. Food aid technology: the experience of a Syrian refugee community in coping with food insecurity. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 4, CSCW2 (2020), 1–25.
[33]
Garreth W. Tigwell, Kristen Shinohara, and Laleh Nourian. 2021. Accessibility Across Borders. In CHI ’21 Workshop: Decolonizing HCI Across Borders(CHI Workshop ’21). 1–4. https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.01488
Index Terms
- Challenges and Considerations for Accessibility Research Across Cultures and Regions
Recommendations
Accessibility Challenges of Video Conferencing Technology
Design, Operation and Evaluation of Mobile CommunicationsAbstractThis paper discusses some of the accessibility challenges posed by current video conferencing technology with a specific focus on the Deaf community. There is a long way to go in making this technology fully accessible and inclusive for those with ...
Interdependent components of web accessibility
W4A '05: Proceedings of the 2005 International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A)Increasingly, the Web is providing unprecedented access to information and interaction for people with disabilities. However, the Web will not be equally accessible, allowing people with disabilities to access and contribute to the Web, until:• ...
Accessibility and affect in technologies for museums: a path towards socio-enactive systems
IHC '17: Proceedings of the XVI Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing SystemsThe ubiquitous presence of digital technology in daily activities and our bodily immersion in such activities present new and interesting opportunities for research in Human-computer interaction. Immersive and interactive solutions for art exhibitions ...
Comments
Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
October 2024
1475 pages
ISBN:9798400706776
DOI:10.1145/3663548
Copyright © 2024 Owner/Author.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.
Sponsors
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
New York, NY, United States
Publication History
Published: 27 October 2024
Check for updates
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Short-paper
- Research
- Refereed limited
Conference
ASSETS '24
Sponsor:
ASSETS '24: The 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility
October 27 - 30, 2024
NL, St. John's, Canada
Acceptance Rates
Overall Acceptance Rate 436 of 1,556 submissions, 28%
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 114Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)114
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)49
Reflects downloads up to 24 Jan 2025
Other Metrics
Citations
View Options
View options
View or Download as a PDF file.
PDFeReader
View online with eReader.
eReaderHTML Format
View this article in HTML Format.
HTML FormatLogin options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Sign in