Navigating unfamiliar websites is challenging for users with visual impairments. Although many we... more Navigating unfamiliar websites is challenging for users with visual impairments. Although many websites offer visual cues to facilitate access to pages/features most websites are expected to have (e.g., log in at the top right), such visual shortcuts are not accessible to users with visual impairments. Moreover, although such pages serve the same functionality across websites (e.g., to log in, to sign up), the location, wording, and navigation path of links to these pages vary from one website to another. Such inconsistencies are challenging for users with visual impairments, especially for users of screen readers, who often need to linearly listen to content of pages to figure out how to access certain website features. To study how to improve access to main website features, we iteratively designed and tested a command-based approach for main features of websites via a browser extension powered by machine learning and human input. The browser extension gives users a way to access ...
To better inform privacy/security designs for people with disabilities, we “shadowed” people with... more To better inform privacy/security designs for people with disabilities, we “shadowed” people with visual impairments and their allies (e.g., friends, family members, and professional helpers) for two days followed by an exit interview. Our study results provide rich and nuanced accounts of how people with visual impairments enact their privacy/security in daily life, influenced by both their interactions with their allies and multiple (marginalized) dimensions of their identities such as different disabilities. We also found that people with visual impairments often work closely with their allies to protect their privacy and security in a cooperative manner. However, they were also thoughtful about who they would ask for help in part due to privacy reasons, even if they are trustworthy family members. We discuss ideas for future research and design, particularly a need for designing mechanisms or tools that facilitate cooperative privacy management (e.g., between people with visual ...
Navigating unfamiliar websites is challenging for users with visual impairments. Although many we... more Navigating unfamiliar websites is challenging for users with visual impairments. Although many websites offer visual cues to facilitate access to pages/features most websites are expected to have (e.g., log in at the top right), such visual shortcuts are not accessible to users with visual impairments. Moreover, although such pages serve the same functionality across websites (e.g., to log in, to sign up), the location, wording, and navigation path of links to these pages vary from one website to another. Such inconsistencies are challenging for users with visual impairments, especially for users of screen readers, who often need to linearly listen to content of pages to figure out how to access certain website features. To study how to improve access to main website features, we iteratively designed and tested a command-based approach for main features of websites via a browser extension powered by machine learning and human input. The browser extension gives users a way to access ...
To better inform privacy/security designs for people with disabilities, we “shadowed” people with... more To better inform privacy/security designs for people with disabilities, we “shadowed” people with visual impairments and their allies (e.g., friends, family members, and professional helpers) for two days followed by an exit interview. Our study results provide rich and nuanced accounts of how people with visual impairments enact their privacy/security in daily life, influenced by both their interactions with their allies and multiple (marginalized) dimensions of their identities such as different disabilities. We also found that people with visual impairments often work closely with their allies to protect their privacy and security in a cooperative manner. However, they were also thoughtful about who they would ask for help in part due to privacy reasons, even if they are trustworthy family members. We discuss ideas for future research and design, particularly a need for designing mechanisms or tools that facilitate cooperative privacy management (e.g., between people with visual ...
Uploads
Papers by Smirity Kaushik