Developing IoT systems and devices for trust by users with disabilities

Abstract

This session will present results from an interdisciplinary mixed-methods research project on trust and access in the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices by disabled persons. The year-long project is directed by professors in Philosophy, Education, and Modeling and Simulation, and will produce a trust framework as well as a prototype app. This presentation will focus on research outcomes about how designers and engineers can build IoT systems and devices that are most likely to be trusted by users with disabilities. The empirical component of the project was situated in universal design (UD) and universal design learning (UDL), and included 63 survey responses, three focus groups, and 58 journals, with the qualitative data being collected and analyzed according to constructivist grounded theory. Oriented by this empirical research, we conducted a literature review of trust discourses in HCI and engineering publication, as well as a review of philosophical work on epistemological and ethical issues in experiences and practices of trust. In this presentation, we will present a primer for abled engineers on the lived experience of disability as a design context relevant to technology adoption. This will address the medical and social model of disability, an analysis of solutionism as a barrier to effective design for disabled users, and a typology of the most relevant sorts of trust for design for disabled users (viz. trust as reliability, trust as veracity, and trust as stewardship), developed through a post-phenomenological analysis of UX in tech interfaces paradigmatic of disabled lived experience. We will also provide an overview of our trust framework which avoids the solutionist implications of providing a checklist or series of principles by instead providing guiding processes and questions.