the survey, 623 CHI 2014 attendees answered the question about accessibility,
with only 12 indicating their expressed
needs were not met and the rest that
their needs were met. Only one of those
12 responses actually indicated a specific disability-related need that was requested but not met. The other responses indicated an accommodation that
should have been requested but was not
(“I had an accessibility-related special
need but did not request an accommodation”); most of the comments related
to the cost of the conference or labeling of food ingredients. Although these
topics relate to the inclusiveness of the
conference, none specifically related to
perceptual, motor, or cognitive disabilities. In addition, one change has been
made though not based on the feedback
from surveys; several related conferences (such as ASSETS and ubiComp) allow telepresence robots (such as Beam
from Suitable Technologies, Inc. of Palo
Alto, CA) to allow for participation of
individuals with disabilities who are unable to travel. The CHI 2016 conference
committee accepted applications from
members who wanted to participate in
the conference via a Beam robot due to
“mobility impairments, chronic health
issues, or temporary travel limitations.”
The experiment with robots at CHI 2016
was deemed a success, with a total of 35
individuals participating via 10 telepresence robots.
Digital accessibility. For the CHI
2014 digital accessibility chair, three
topical areas were suggested by the conference chairs for improvement: conference website, conference mobile apps,
and papers-publication process.
Among them, the most challenging was the papers review process.
There is one clear international technical standard for webpages—the
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
(WCAG) version 2.0—that has been
adopted by many national governments, educational organizations,
and corporations.
14 The guidelines
were used in May 2013 in two preliminary evaluations of accessibility—one
by a SIGCHI Executive Committee
member and one by the AccessComputing Project at the University of
Washington—and changes were made
to the website (minor tagging of images) to improve accessibility. This was
a good starting point but not optimal
because there should be more evaluations involving people with disabilities. A similar process was used for the
CHI 2015 and the CHI 2016 conferences, and it is hoped the SIGCHI Accessibility Community can be involved
in the future to perform user-based
accessibility evaluations.
The technical program chair and
digital accessibility chair for CHI 2014
learned that the papers-publishing
company SIGCHI works with, Sheri-
dan, offers the option of evaluating
accepted-paper .pdf files for accessibil-
ity and notifying authors of violations.
However, this option was not possible
stages, requiring portable ramps to be
added; and
Distance. The vast size of the convention center meant considerable distance between events, affecting attendees with mobility limitations.
Based on the data collected, SIGCHI leadership concluded that two categories of data or communication were
missing between organizers and attendees for the organization’s conferences:
Attendees. Attendees, especially presenters, need a mechanism for letting
conference planners know in advance
if they require any type of special accommodations; and
Conferences. Conferences need to
let potential attendees know in advance which meeting locations and
hotel accommodations are accessible
and which are not and provide specific directions (and, where appropriate, signage) to guide attendees along
accessible routes between hotels and
convention centers.
To address the first, a box was added
to the subsequent conference registration form for CHI 2014, as well as for
2015 and 2016. The online forms invite
authors of accepted papers/notes to indicate if the presenters of the papers/
notes will need any type of disability-related accommodation and, if so, what
type; for example, SIGCHI indicated
it would fund as many sign-language
interpreters as needed, but they must
be requested in advance. To address
information flow, a webpage was set up
for the CHI 2014 conference website
by the conference management team,
the chairs, and the SIGCHI executive
VP dedicated to physical accessibility,
including detailed information regarding transportation and convention
center and hotel contacts. The same
information was provided for the CHI
2015 and CHI 2016 conferences. In
addition, the committee in charge of
venue selection began (as discussed in
the sidebar’s timeline) to assess site accessibility so a basic level of access can
be ensured (such as wheelchairs and
scooters being able to get to every part
of the conference).
In 2014, SIGCHI leadership contin-
ued to ask about accessibility in the post-
conference survey; while such survey
data is not public, summaries of the data
are included in reports from the SIG-
CHI Accessibility Community.
11 From CHI16 telepresence robots at recharging station. P H O
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