SGER: IT-Oriented Functional Assessments

研究参与者(受试者)的特征对于学术同行决定研究的有效性和结果对新人群的适用性至关重要。但是，虽然参与者的健康状况可以使用一致的医学术语来指代，但对于HCI来说，给定状况的名称只提供了对个人功能能力的模糊估计。已经发表了许多文章，其中参与者被描述为患有多发性硬化症、肌肉营养不良、脑瘫或颈髓损伤，但这种临床诊断不足以深入了解研究参与者的能力。在这项研究中，PI将朝着开发用于测量研究参与者的功能能力的一致评估工具迈出第一步，这些工具解决了人机界面研究社区在描述特定研究的具有功能障碍的受试者队列方面的需求。PI设想使用这样的评估工具来衡量适用的人体功能(视觉、听力、身体运动和操作以及认知)和标准的人机界面功能(输入，如指向、文本输入和语音输入，以及输出，如视觉显示、文本到语音输出和音频显示)。这些工具将被设计用于任何涉及人机界面和残疾人的研究，也可以用于评估经历了不是由于医疗原因而是由于环境(寒冷、高温、风、亮度、黑暗等)或任务(搬运东西、眼睛忙碌、音频被遮挡或排除等)而发生的情况限制的人。在这项探索性研究中，PI将专注于一套功能，即与计算机的物理交互，他将为此开发两个概念验证解决方案。首先，将汇集身体功能评估和信息技术互动方面的现有知识，制定基于问卷的功能评估。这一工具将由可访问性研究人员进行评估，随后将进行对照实验，以进行正式验证和工具实用性的演示。其次，为了展示以计算机为基础的功能评估的潜力，PI将开发一个硬件和软件工具，为选定的运动和灵活性障碍提供详细的量化功能评估，包括那些自愿的(例如，精细运动控制减少)和非自愿的(例如，震颤、肌张力障碍、肌阵挛)。这一工具包括标准和定制的计算机硬件以及定制的软件，将比纸质工具能够进行更详细的评估。同样，工具的有效性将通过对照实验来展示。更广泛的影响：这项研究侧重于不同残疾人士在与信息技术互动时所经历的挑战。该项目的结果将允许描述研究参与者的能力，而不依赖于任何潜在的临床诊断，同时提供关于他们与IT相关的能力的更多细节。因此，由此产生的技术将增强我们解释文献中报告的结果的能力，也将使研究结果能够更有效地进行比较。这项研究的未来扩展可能会促进IT用户与特定技术的匹配，并帮助硬件和软件开发人员开发适合个人用户需求或可供有各种功能限制的人使用的产品。

The characteristics of participants (subjects) in research studies are critical for academic peers to determine the validity of a study, and the applicability of results to new populations. But while a participant's medical condition can be referred to using consistent medical terminology, for HCI the name of a given condition provides only a vague estimate of the functional capabilities of the individual. Numerous articles have been published where participants were described as having multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, or cervical spinal cord injuries, but such clinical diagnoses provides insufficient insights into the capabilities of the study participants. In this research, the PI will take the first steps towards the development of consistent assessment tools for measurement of the functional capabilities of research participants, which address the needs of the HCI research community with respect to describing a subject cohort with functional impairments for a given study. The PI envisions such assessment tools being used to measure both applicable human functions (seeing, hearing, physical movement and manipulation, and cognition) and standard HCI functions (inputs such as pointing, text entry and speech input, and outputs such as visual display, text-to-speech output amd audio display). The tools would be designed for use in any study which involved HCI and people with disabilities, and could also be used to assess people who experience situational limitations which occur not because of medical causes but due to the environment (cold, heat, wind, brightness, darkness, etc) or the task (carrying things, eyes-busy, audio occluded or precluded, etc). In this exploratory study, the PI will focus on one set function, namely physical interactions with computers, for which he will develop two proof-of-concept solutions. First, a questionnaire-based functional assessment will be developed, by bringing together existing knowledge on the assessment of physical functions and IT interactions. This tool will be evaluated by accessibility researchers, followed by a controlled experiment that will allow for formal validation as well as a demonstration of the tool's practicality. Second, to demonstrate the potential of computer-based functional assessments, the PI will develop a hardware and software tool that provides detailed quantitative functional assessments for selected movement and dexterity impairments, including those which are voluntary (e.g., reduced fine motor control) and involuntary (e.g., tremors, dystonia, myoclonus). This tool, to comprise standard and customized computer hardware as well as custom software, will allow for more detailed assessments than the paper-based tool. Again, tool efficacy will be demonstrated through a controlled experiment.Broader Impacts: This research focuses on the challenges experienced by individuals with various disabilities as they interact with information technologies. The outcomes of the project will allow the capabilities of study participants to be described independent of any underlying clinical diagnosis, while providing greater detail regarding their IT-related capabilities. As a result, the resulting techniques will enhance our ability to interpret results reported in the literature, and will also allow results to be compared among studies more effectively. Future extensions of this research may facilitate the matching of IT users to specific technologies, and also assist hardware and software developers to develop products that either adapt to the needs of individual users or are usable by people with a wide variety of functional limitations.