Accessibility Research in the Pandemic: Making a Difference in the Quality of Life for People with Disabilities

In his ASSETS 2020 keynote talk, Dr. Lazar discusses how technology accessibility researchers and practitioners have been working during the pandemic to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities. Adults with disabilities are three times more likely than adults without disabilities to have the serious underlying medical conditions which place them at a higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19. Dr. Lazar discusses two data collection efforts in the accessibility community to understand technology-related needs during the pandemic, and then highlights current initiatives to address these needs. Accessibility researchers and practitioners are currently working on projects that are 1) providing for accessible public health information and data (such as fully accessible data dashboards), 2) developing tools and technologies for helping people with disabilities stay healthy and avoid the virus (such as accessible masks and technologies for social distancing), and 3) ensuring that online learning and teleconferencing can be accessible for people with various disabilities and needs (such as Deaf users and users of AAC). Dr. Lazar challenges accessibility researchers and practitioners to get more involved in researching and developing digital technologies to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities. Specifically, he suggests some potential areas of research and development work: technologies to allow for priority scheduling of deliveries and purchasing of items with limited quantities for people with disabilities, new uses of crowdsourcing to empower people with disabilities during the pandemic, and studying the impact of masks on the use of automated speech recognition. Dr. Lazar ends the speech by challenging everyone to find accessibility projects that give you joy, are intellectually challenging, and meet the needs of the world!