CHS: Medium: Next Generation Content Production Tools for People with Vision Impairments

确保数字信息和计算工具的可及性对于使视力障碍者能够参与社会的各个方面至关重要，从教育到职业前景再到个人成长。与视力正常的同龄人相比，数百万有视力障碍的美国人就业或接受高等教育的可能性更小，而且收入水平往往也更低，这一事实突显了这种迫切需求。尽管在信息可访问性方面已经有了巨大的进步，但绝大多数的研究都集中在如何使他人制作的内容可访问上。然而，自己制作原创内容（如创意写作、播客和音乐）为视力受损的人提供了有价值的就业、自我表达和宣传形式。该项目将引入新的无障碍工具，用于创建基于文本和音频的内容，这将支持盲人学生和专业人士的需求，无论是独立工作还是与有视力的合作者合作。这项工作将通过与五个视障人士社区组织的伙伴关系，以及通过开放源码软件和随附的教学材料在网上进行外联和传播。将创建一个“无障碍生活实验室”，通过为本科生和研究生提供身临其境的学习体验，将研究、教育和推广结合起来，并为残疾社区成员提供了解和参与研究的机会。该项目有可能通过连接计算、工程和艺术，为视力障碍人士增加获得stem相关教育经验和就业机会的机会。该研究还将展示可访问性和内容制作的创新方法，该方法可扩展到其他领域和应用。推进无障碍内容生产工具需要重新思考信息的处理、呈现和交互方式，这给人机交互、机器学习和协作带来了重大挑战，成为研究的前沿。该项目将贡献：(1)设计指南和可访问内容创建工具的分类法；(2)处理基于文本和音频的内容的新算法，在解决与机器学习、文本分析和音频处理相关的挑战的同时，提供了呈现信息的新方法；(3)无障碍交互技术，提高盲人用户理解、导航和编辑工作的能力；(4)协作支持功能，这些功能将弥合协作系统中的差距，并为核心协作流程是否以及如何在混合能力团队的背景下运作提供经验和理论证据；(5)开发的系统如何在自然使用过程中支持个人自我效能和协作，从而更广泛地促进包容性在线工作和学习的经验证据。项目成果将通过综合评估策略进行评估，该策略涵盖个人、团体和社会层面的成果。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Ensuring the accessibility of digital information and computational tools is crucial to enabling people with vision impairments to participate in all aspects of society, from education to career prospects to personal growth. This critical need is underscored by the fact that the millions of Americans with a visual disability are less likely to be employed or to pursue higher education than their sighted peers, and often have lower income levels as well. Although there has been tremendous improvement in information accessibility, the vast majority of research focuses on making content produced by others accessible. Yet, producing original content oneself (such as creative writing, podcasts, and music) provides valuable forms of employment, self-expression, and advocacy for people with vision impairments. This project will introduce novel accessible tools for creating text- and audio-based content, which will support the needs of blind students and professionals whether working independently or on teams with sighted collaborators. Outreach and dissemination of the work will take place through partnership with five community organizations for people with vision impairments, as well as online by means of open-source software and accompanying instructional materials. A "living laboratory for accessibility" will be created thal integrates research, education, and outreach through immersive learning experiences for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as opportunities for community members with disabilities to learn about and participate in research. The project has the potential to increase access to STEM-related educational experiences and career opportunities for people with vision impairments by bridging computation, engineering, and the arts. The research will also demonstrate an innovative approach to accessibility and content production that can be extended to other domains and applications.Advancing accessible content production tools requires rethinking the way information is processed, rendered, and interacted with, which brings critical challenges in human-computer interaction, machine learning, and collaboration to the forefront of research. This project will contribute: (1) design guidelines and a taxonomy for accessible content creation tools; (2) novel algorithms to process text- and audio-based content, which enable new ways of presenting information while solving challenges relevant to machine learning, text analytics, and audio processing; (3) accessible interaction techniques that advance the ability of blind users to understand, navigate, and edit their work; (4) collaboration support features that will bridge gaps in collaboration systems and provide empirical and theoretical evidence of whether and how core collaborative processes operate in the context of mixed-ability teams; and (5) empirical evidence of how the developed systems support individual self-efficacy and collaboration during naturalistic use, thereby advancing inclusive online work and learning more broadly. Project outcomes will be assessed through a comprehensive evaluation strategy that captures individual, group, and societal level outcomes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.