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Capturing Blind People’s Movements to Improve Safety

Autonomous vehicles are trained on datasets to detect human movement in order to prevent collisions. However, these datasets often only include the movements of sighted individuals. Blind people often use canes to feel around for curbs and bumps, and these movements may not be interpreted properly by current autonomous vehicles, leading to potential life-threatening situations […]

TRACE Attended the ATiA Conference

The ATiA (Assistive Technology Industry Association) conference is a huge gathering of assistive technology users, professors, parents, occupational and physical therapists, and people with disabilities. There are exhibits, seminars, and activities for people to learn all about assistive technology! Dr. Amanda Lazar, along with researchers from TechSAge and other organizations, presented at a pre-conference seminar: […]

Successful PhD Dissertation Defense: Including Disability in Datasets and AI Development

Rie Kamikubo, a UMD PhD candidate successfully defended her dissertation on December 18th, 2024! Her PhD is in Information Studies with a focus on the intersection between AI and disability. Rie started with a background in interaction design, where she first learned about accessibility. Taking quickly to the field, she began her work in extending […]

Information Wayfinding of Screen Reader Users

The representations created in this study can help people understand the versatility of screen readers, and can inspire innovation and changes to these technologies for people with disabilities. UMD researchers J. Bern Jordan, Victoria Van Hyning, Mason A. Jones, Rachael Bradley Montgomery, Elizabeth Bottner, and Evan Tansil had the opportunity to present their research on […]

Publication of TRACE Research on Photosensitive Epilepsy Guidelines

Being able to recognize when content can be harmful for individuals with photosensitive epilepsy can give people the opportunity to release content that is safe for all viewers. TRACE researchers Dr. Bern Jordan and Dr. Gregg Vanderheiden recently had their work on photosensitive epilepsy published in the ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing journal. Photosensitive epilepsy, […]

Exploring Videoconferencing for Older Adults with Cognitive Concerns

Understanding the opinions and thoughts of older adults when it comes to videoconferencing can lead to more inclusive designs for these populations. UMD researchers Ruipu Hu, Ge Gao, and Amanda Lazar had the opportunity to present their research on videoconferencing with older adults at the 2024 ASSETS conference (an accessibility and computing conference)! “While videoconferencing […]

Understanding How Blind Users Handle Object Recognition Errors

Camera-based assistive technologies like object recognizers are impactful for many people with vision impairments. The insights that authors gained from this study can be used to improve these technologies are reduce the number of errors. UMD researchers Jonggi Hong and Hernisa Kacorri had the opportunity to present their research on the use of object recognition […]

Co-designing Data Access and Sharing with Blind People

The insights gained from this study can guide AI developers to integrate informed consent and inclusive data practices into their work. UMD researchers Rie Kamikubo, Farnaz Zamiri Zeraati, Kyungjun Lee, and Hernisa Kacorri had the opportunity to present their research on data access and sharing with blind people at the 2024 ASSETS conference (an accessibility […]

New History of the Trace Center Released: “Technology and Disability: 50 Years of Trace R&D Center Contributions and Lessons Learned”

The new book from Springer recounts Trace’s 50-year history, its enduring contributions to the field, and the lessons learned along the way. According to reviewers, Trace is “a tour de force,” “a catalyst for a global movement” and “an indispensable engine propelling accessibility forward for people with disabilities.”    The story of the Trace R&D […]

Morphic: Advancing Social Equity Through Digital Inclusion

We live in a world of digital technology. Computers have become embedded in our everyday lives to the point where many of us hardly notice how often we interact with technology—to buy our groceries or train tickets, check out books from the library, communicate with colleagues, friends and family, do our banking, enter secure spaces, […]

Blind Users Accessing Their Training Images in Teachable Object Recognizers (Summary)

Teachable object recognizers allow blind users to train their camera-equipped devices such as mobile phones to recognize everyday objects by providing a few photos as training examples. A user takes a series of pictures of an object to “train” the machine learning model how to distinguish that object from other objects, so that in the […]

Mobile Phone Use by People with Mild to Moderate Dementia: Uncovering Challenges and Identifying Opportunities (Summary)

Dementia is a syndrome that involves changes in cognition (thinking, remembering, and reasoning) and abilities, often affecting the ways that individuals engage in daily activities. Many everyday technologies are not designed to meet the access needs of individuals with dementia. Recent research shows that almost half of those with mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia […]

Inclusive AI: Representation of Age, Gender, and Race in Accessibility Datasets

More and more technologies that we use in our everyday lives are supported by artificial intelligence (AI). AI-infused technologies help us unlock our mobile phones, power our digital assistants, monitor health conditions, detect financial fraud, and navigate the best travel route. Although AI affords numerous conveniences and efficiencies to users, it can lead to discriminatory […]

IncluSet: A data surfacing repository for accessibility datasets. (Summary)

Kacorri, H., Dwivedi, U., Amancherla, S., Jha, M., & Chanduka, R. (2020). IncluSet: A data surfacing repository for accessibility datasets. In T. Guerreiro, H. Nicolau, & K. Moffatt (Eds.), ASSETS ’20: The 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (pp. 1-4, No. 72). New York: ACM.  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3373625.3418026 PMCID: PMC8375514   Data is […]

A case study of a strobe GIF and photosensitive epilepsy

Photosensitive epilepsy is a condition that can cause seizures when affected people view flickering lights, flashing in videos and video games, and bold, regular patterns. It is estimated that 1 in 4000 people have photosensitive epilepsy with it being most common in adolescents. The Trace R&D Center (in the College of Information Studies at the […]

  • Maryland Initiative for Digital Accessibility

    The TRACE RERC is an active participant in MIDA, a new organization focused on the design of technology products that are "born-accessible."

    Raising the Floor

    The primary development partner of the TRACE RERC since 2013, the team at the nonprofit Raising the Floor is continuing the development and deployment of Morphic and AT-on-Demand, and will partner on several development activities in the new RERC grant.