Smartwatches present inherent input difficulties due to the small touchscreen. In a controlled experiment with 14 participants with upper body motor impairments, we compared smartwatch touchscreen input to input on the bezel of the watch, the latter of which should at least theoretically stabilize user input due to its hard edge. Results demonstrate a speed-accuracy tradeoff whereby the touchscreen is faster but the bezel is more accurate.

Smartwatches are always-available, provide quick access to information in a mobile setting, and can collect continuous health and fitness data. However, the small interaction space of these wearables may pose challenges for people with upper body motor impairments. To investigate accessible smartwatch interactions for this user group, we conducted two studies. First, we assessed the accessibility of existing smartwatch gestures with 10 participants with motor impairments. We found that not all participants were able to complete button, swipe and tap interactions. In a second study, we adopted a participatory approach to explore smartwatch gesture preferences and to gain insight into alternative, more accessible smartwatch interaction techniques. Eleven participants with motor impairments created gestures for 16 common smartwatch actions on both touchscreen and non- touchscreen (bezel, wristband) areas of the watch and the user's body. We present results from both studies and provide design recommendations.

Emerging wearable technologies like head-mounted displays (e.g., Google Glass) and wrist-worn devices (e.g., Fitbit, Apple Watch 2.0) are always available, have the potential to provide quick access to information and offer relatively hands-free interaction compared to smartphones. Additionally, they can collect continuous health and fitness-related information of their wearer. For people with disabilities, these technologies may also offer possibilities of independent use. However, people with upper body motor impairments may not be able to gain from the potential benefits that these wearables can offer. For example, challenges related to performing multi-touch gestures and text entry, may magnify as the interaction space of some wearables gets even smaller. In my dissertation, I explore the potential impacts and assess the accessibility of existing mainstream wearable technologies, including head-mounted displays, smartwatches, and fitness trackers. Consequently, I implement and evaluate accessible wearable interactions for people with motor impairments for these wearables, specifically head-mounted displays and smartwatches.

The ability to share automatically tracked health and fitness behaviors has yielded benefits ranging from increasing user motivation to providing therapists with greater insight into their patients' progress. While past work on sharing this data has primarily focused on users with typical motor abilities, features are now emerging in mainstream tracking technologies to extend to people with mobility impairments (e.g., tracking wheelchair rolling). This paper explores opportunities specifically for users with mobility impairments to share this automatically tracked data both with peers and with physical, occupational or recreational therapists. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 therapists and 10 people with mobility impairments. The interviews focused on current and desired activity-tracking and sharing practices, and included a design probe activity to more concretely assess the perceived utility of sharing tracked fitness data. We report on attitudes and concerns toward sharing fitness data from the perspective of therapists and people with mobility impairments as well as outline design opportunities to explore in future work.

Controlled studies of touchscreen input performance for users with upper body motor impairments remain relatively sparse. To address this gap, we present a controlled lab study of mouse vs. touchscreen performance with 32 participants (16 with upper body motor impairments and 16 without). Our study examines: (1) how touch input compares to an indirect pointing device (a mouse); (2) how performance compares across a range of standard interaction techniques; and (3) how these answers differ for users with and without motor impairments. While the touchscreen was faster than the mouse overall, only participants without motor impairments benefited from a lower error rate on the touchscreen. Indeed, participants with motor impairments had a three-fold increase in pointing (tapping) errors on the touchscreen compared to the mouse. Our findings also highlight the high frequency of spurious touches for users with motor impairments and update past accessibility recommendations for minimum touchscreen target sizes to at least 18mm.

Electronic health and fitness trackers have received substantial attention over the past decade, from new mobile and wearable technologies to evaluations of potential health impacts. These trackers, however, may not be accessible to people with mobility impairments, for whom activities such as running, walking, or climbing stairs can be difficult or impossible. To investigate the accessibility of wearable tracking devices and mobile apps, we conducted a study with 14 participants with a range of mobility impairments. The study included an in-person interview, evaluation of two off-the-shelf wearable devices, and a participatory design activity, followed by an optional week-long field evaluation of a mobile fitness app (to which 8 participants opted in). Our findings highlight widespread accessibility challenges with existing tracking technologies and provide implications for designing more inclusive solutions.

Head-mounted displays provide relatively hands-free interaction that could improve mobile computing access for users with motor impairments. To investigate this largely unexplored area, we present two user studies. The first, smaller study evaluated the accessibility of Google Glass, a head-mounted display, with 6 participants. Findings revealed potential benefits of a head-mounted display yet demonstrated the need for alternative means of controlling Glass-3 of the 6 participants could not use it at all. We then conducted a second study with 12 participants to evaluate a potential alternative input mechanism that could allow for accessible control of a head-mounted display: switch-based wearable touchpads that can be affixed to the body or wheelchair. The study assessed input performance with three sizes of touchpad, investigated personalization patterns when participants were asked to place the touchpads on their body or wheelchair, and elicited subjective responses. All 12 participants were able to use the touchpads to control the display, and patterns of touchpad placement point to the value of personalization in providing support for each user's motor abilities.

Head-mounted displays such as Google Glass offer potential advantages for persons with motor impairments (MI). For example, they are always available and offer relatively hands-free interaction compared to a mobile phone. Despite this potential, there is little prior work examining the accessibility of such devices. In this poster paper, we perform a preliminary assessment of the accessibility of Google Glass for users with MI and the potential impacts of a head-mounted interactive computer. Our findings show that, while the touchpad is particularly difficult to use-impossible for three participants-advantages over a phone include that it is relatively hands free, does not require looking down at the display, and cannot be easily dropped.

This paper presents a curated collection of fictional abstracts for papers that could appear in the proceedings of the 2039 CHI Conference. It provides an opportunity to consider the various visions guiding work in HCI, the futures toward which we (believe we) are working, and how research in the field might relate with broader social, political, and cultural changes over the next quarter century.

Creating a predefined set of touchscreen gestures that caters to all users and age groups is difficult. To inform the design of intuitive and easy to use gestures specifically for children, we adapted a userdefined gesture study by Wobbrock et al. [12] that had been designed for adults. We then compared gestures created on an interactive tabletop by 12 children and 14 adults. Our study indicates that previous touchscreen experience strongly influences the gestures created by both groups; that adults and children create similar gestures; and that the adaptations we made allowed us to successfully elicit userdefined gestures from both children and adults. These findings will aid designers in better supporting touchscreen gestures for children, and provide a basis for further userdefined gesture studies with children.

Performative Experience Design (PED) is an extension of experience design focusing on the unique timebound encounter between performers and spectators. Technology is purposefully designed to enhance the experience between audience and performers. PED has been studied with adult participants; however, it has not been explored with children. We conducted a Cooperative Inquiry session to explore 1) how children want to interact with live performances; 2) how they seek to change a story in live performances; and 3) a specific technique that might facilitate designing for such interactions. We present our initial findings regarding children's perceptions of what constitutes live performance and the ways in which children want to use technology to interact with, direct, and respond to narrative structures and characters within live performances. We include a discussion of the features of a specific codesign technique for supporting the ideation process of our child designers.

With the increasing popularity of mainstream wearable devices, it is critical to assess the accessibility implications of such technologies. For people with visual impairments, who do not always need the visual display of a mobile phone, alternative means of eyes-free wearable interaction are particularly appealing. To explore the potential impacts of such technology, we conducted two studies. The first was an online survey that included 114 participants with visual impairments and 101 sighted participants; we compare the two groups in terms of current device use. The second was an interview and design probe study with 10 participants with visual impairments. Our findings expand on past work to characterize a range of trends in smartphone use and accessibility issues therein. Participants with visual impairments also responded positively to two eyes-free wearable device scenarios: a wristband or ring and a glasses-based device. Discussions on projected use of these devices suggest that small, easily accessible, and discreet wearable input could positively impact the ability of people with visual impairments to access information on the go and to participate in certain social interactions.

With the expansion of data sharing and always-online devices, social networks have become an increasingly important aspect of society. Groups such as the SMR Foundation are constantly on the lookout for new tools to analyze these networks, particularly their behaviors over time. ViralViz is a visualization tool meant to aid in the study of the diffusion of content through social networks. It operates on GraphML formatted data, which can be gathered from Twitter through NodeXL. ViralViz uses topic-modeling tool MALLET to create topics from the data and display them as layers in a Streamgraph. ViralViz also provides tools to the user to allow for manipulation of the display and filtering of the data to aid in analyzing the social network. We chronicle the iterative development of the project including usability studies and refinements. Although receiving positive remarks for vision and functionality, a number of improvements are recorded here for future work.

Online communities often face challenges of encouraging people to provide more, better, or particular kinds of content. In this paper we add to a growing body of work on interface techniques and domains for influencing people's behavior by encouraging people to contribute personal, rather than informational, content to an online community through presenting example content in a tutorial video. A study of 175 people who viewed a video that contained either more personal or more factual content attached to places on a map showed that people who saw personal content contributed more personally-oriented content and saw MyMaps as more useful for personal tasks than those who saw descriptive content.