CHI is the number one international conference on Human Computer Interaction. TRACE Researchers Dr. Amanda Lazar and Dr. Hernisa Kacorri and their graduate students had the opportunity to contribute their research papers: “Surfacing Technology Routines While Studying Videoconferencing Among Older Adults with Cognitive Concerns,” “Understanding Older Adults’ (Dis)Engagement with Design Materials,” and “Tracking and its […] The post TRACE Attended CHI appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
HCI International is an international conference hosted every year. Researchers come together to share findings and studies in the field. Dr. Bern Jordan had the opportunity to present his talk “Evaluating Conformance of Video Safety Tools for Photosensitive Epilepsy” in Gothenburg, Sweden! You can check out his paper here, however, please note that it is […] The post TRACE Attended HCI International appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
Making Technologies Accessible for All The TRACE RERC is a research and development center at the University of Maryland, College Park. It is part of the College of Information and is funded by NIDILRR (the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research). Our Mission Our mission at the Trace Research and Development Center […]| TRACE RERC
CSUN, California State University, Northridge, hosts an assistive technology conference every year. This conference is one of the biggest accessibility conferences in the world, and is sponsored by various well-known companies like Amazon, CVS Health, Google, Microsoft, and Walmart. Dr. Bern Jordan will be presenting his work on accessible kiosks in a session called “Cross-Disability […] The post TRACE is Attending CSUN appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
On February 14th, 2025, TRACE attended the NFB State Convention in Ocean City, Maryland. Dr. Bern Jordan designed and developed a prototype for accessible kiosks which he showcased during this convention. Kiosks are becoming more and more popular: we order food with them, check bags at the airport with them, and more. However, these kiosks […] The post TRACE Attended the National Federation of the Blind State Convention appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
Autonomous vehicles are trained on datasets to detect human movement in order to prevent collisions. However, these datasets often only include the movements of sighted individuals. Blind people often use canes to feel around for curbs and bumps, and these movements may not be interpreted properly by current autonomous vehicles, leading to potential life-threatening situations […] The post Capturing Blind People’s Movements to Improve Safety appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
The ATiA (Assistive Technology Industry Association) conference is a huge gathering of assistive technology users, professors, parents, occupational and physical therapists, and people with disabilities. There are exhibits, seminars, and activities for people to learn all about assistive technology! Dr. Amanda Lazar, along with researchers from TechSAge and other organizations, presented at a pre-conference seminar: […] The post TRACE Attended the ATiA Conference appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
Rie Kamikubo, a UMD PhD candidate successfully defended her dissertation on December 18th, 2024! Her PhD is in Information Studies with a focus on the intersection between AI and disability. Rie started with a background in interaction design, where she first learned about accessibility. Taking quickly to the field, she began her work in extending […] The post Successful PhD Dissertation Defense: Including Disability in Datasets and AI Development appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
The representations created in this study can help people understand the versatility of screen readers, and can inspire innovation and changes to these technologies for people with disabilities. UMD researchers J. Bern Jordan, Victoria Van Hyning, Mason A. Jones, Rachael Bradley Montgomery, Elizabeth Bottner, and Evan Tansil had the opportunity to present their research on […] The post Information Wayfinding of Screen Reader Users appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
Being able to recognize when content can be harmful for individuals with photosensitive epilepsy can give people the opportunity to release content that is safe for all viewers. TRACE researchers Dr. Bern Jordan and Dr. Gregg Vanderheiden recently had their work on photosensitive epilepsy published in the ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing journal. Photosensitive epilepsy, […] The post Publication of TRACE Research on Photosensitive Epilepsy Guidelines appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
Understanding the opinions and thoughts of older adults when it comes to videoconferencing can lead to more inclusive designs for these populations. UMD researchers Ruipu Hu, Ge Gao, and Amanda Lazar had the opportunity to present their research on videoconferencing with older adults at the 2024 ASSETS conference (an accessibility and computing conference)! “While videoconferencing […] The post Exploring Videoconferencing for Older Adults with Cognitive Concerns appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
Camera-based assistive technologies like object recognizers are impactful for many people with vision impairments. The insights that authors gained from this study can be used to improve these technologies are reduce the number of errors. UMD researchers Jonggi Hong and Hernisa Kacorri had the opportunity to present their research on the use of object recognition […] The post Understanding How Blind Users Handle Object Recognition Errors appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
The insights gained from this study can guide AI developers to integrate informed consent and inclusive data practices into their work. UMD researchers Rie Kamikubo, Farnaz Zamiri Zeraati, Kyungjun Lee, and Hernisa Kacorri had the opportunity to present their research on data access and sharing with blind people at the 2024 ASSETS conference (an accessibility […] The post Co-designing Data Access and Sharing with Blind People appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
The new book from Springer recounts Trace’s 50-year history, its enduring contributions to the field, and the lessons learned along the way. According to reviewers, Trace is “a tour de force,” “a catalyst for a global movement” and “an indispensable engine propelling accessibility forward for people with disabilities.” The story of the Trace R&D […] The post New History of the Trace Center Released: “Technology and Disability: 50 Years of Trace R&D Center Contributions ...| TRACE RERC
We live in a world of digital technology. Computers have become embedded in our everyday lives to the point where many of us hardly notice how often we interact with technology—to buy our groceries or train tickets, check out books from the library, communicate with colleagues, friends and family, do our banking, enter secure spaces, […] The post Morphic: Advancing Social Equity Through Digital Inclusion appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
Teachable object recognizers allow blind users to train their camera-equipped devices such as mobile phones to recognize everyday objects by providing a few photos as training examples. A user takes a series of pictures of an object to “train” the machine learning model how to distinguish that object from other objects, so that in the […] The post Blind Users Accessing Their Training Images in Teachable Object Recognizers (Summary) appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
Dementia is a syndrome that involves changes in cognition (thinking, remembering, and reasoning) and abilities, often affecting the ways that individuals engage in daily activities. Many everyday technologies are not designed to meet the access needs of individuals with dementia. Recent research shows that almost half of those with mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia […] The post Mobile Phone Use by People with Mild to Moderate Dementia: Uncovering Challenges and Identifying Opportu...| TRACE RERC
More and more technologies that we use in our everyday lives are supported by artificial intelligence (AI). AI-infused technologies help us unlock our mobile phones, power our digital assistants, monitor health conditions, detect financial fraud, and navigate the best travel route. Although AI affords numerous conveniences and efficiencies to users, it can lead to discriminatory […] The post Inclusive AI: Representation of Age, Gender, and Race in Accessibility Datasets appeared first on TR...| TRACE RERC
Kacorri, H., Dwivedi, U., Amancherla, S., Jha, M., & Chanduka, R. (2020). IncluSet: A data surfacing repository for accessibility datasets. In T. Guerreiro, H. Nicolau, & K. Moffatt (Eds.), ASSETS ’20: The 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (pp. 1-4, No. 72). New York: ACM. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3373625.3418026 PMCID: PMC8375514 Data is […] The post IncluSet: A data surfacing repository for accessibility datasets. (Summary) appeared firs...| TRACE RERC
Photosensitive epilepsy is a condition that can cause seizures when affected people view flickering lights, flashing in videos and video games, and bold, regular patterns. It is estimated that 1 in 4000 people have photosensitive epilepsy with it being most common in adolescents. The Trace R&D Center (in the College of Information Studies at the […] The post A case study of a strobe GIF and photosensitive epilepsy appeared first on TRACE RERC.| TRACE RERC
Dr. Amanda Lazar and her team presented recent research at the 2022 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems examining the barriers faced by people with dementia to accessing relevant, accurate health information, as well as the potential for AI-driven tools to support different types of memory. The inclusion of people with dementia […] The post How People with Dementia Access Health Information: Research Identifies Barriers, Strategies, and the Potential for New Technologie...| TRACE RERC
Version 1.6 PEAT can work with most modern browsers, including recent versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome. However PEAT does not work properly in Windows Vista with browsers that have been configured to use Direct2D to render web pages (the browser window content area will not be captured properly). While Firefox can also be […]| TRACE RERC
CSUN, California State University, Northridge, hosts an assistive technology conference every year. This conference is one of the biggest accessibility conferences in the world, and is sponsored by various well-known companies like Amazon, CVS Health, Google, Microsoft, and Walmart. Dr. Bern Jordan presented his work on accessible kiosks in a session called “Cross-Disability Access to […]| TRACE RERC
On February 14th, 2025, TRACE attended the NFB State Convention in Ocean City, Maryland. Dr. Bern Jordan designed and developed a prototype for accessible kiosks which he showcased during this convention. Kiosks are becoming more and more popular: we order food with them, check bags at the airport with them, and more. However, these kiosks […]| TRACE RERC
Autonomous vehicles are trained on datasets to detect human movement in order to prevent collisions. However, these datasets often only include the movements of sighted individuals. Blind people often use canes to feel around for curbs and bumps, and these movements may not be interpreted properly by current autonomous vehicles, leading to potential life-threatening situations […]| TRACE RERC
Dr. Hernisa Kacorri’s research on object recognizers with blind participants required a pivot to remote usability testing, leading her team to reflect on the many lessons learned from the shift from the lab to people’s homes. When the covid-19 pandemic disrupted everyday life around the world, Dr. Hernisa Kacorri, assistant professor in the UMD […]| TRACE RERC
The Trace Center’s Photosensitive Epilepsy Analysis Tool (PEAT) is a free, downloadable resource for developers to identify seizure risks in their web content and software. The evaluation used by PEAT is based on an analysis engine developed specifically for web and computer applications. PEAT can help authors determine whether animations or video in their content […]| TRACE RERC