Reframing search and recommendation as opportunities for communication for people with intellectual disability

ABSTRACT

AI-driven commercial innovations and the digital disruptions they create, tend to accelerate faster than assistive technologies, and are rarely designed with inclusion and diversity in mind. We explore the joint value of research through design and co-design to give a voice to users with intellectual disability to set new directions for inclusive innovation. To do this, we present an account of, and a reflection on, the reframing that took place throughout a research program that has evolved over the last 8 years, presented through the lens of 3 case studies. These illustrate turning points in the frames of the research and its journey through the disciplinary traditions of Information Retrieval and Human Computer Interaction (HCI). The contributions of this paper are threefold. First, we contribute knowledge on the value of research through design to identify new frames for inclusive intelligent systems. Second, we extend inclusive co-design approaches to employing working prototypes that can support participant’s voice about the design of the algorithms that underpin intelligent systems. We highlight how these working prototypes nurture the importance of participation and observation. Third, we contribute new frames for inclusive information retrieval, with new perspectives on intent, particularly in the context of image search.

Graphical abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Co-design
• research through design
• Intellectual disability
• Web search
• Image search
• Visual communication

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our research participants and the organisation that supports them, the Endeavour Foundation. We would like to thank the students and collaborators who have contributed to the design and development of the prototypes presented in this paper: David Poxon, Lauren Fell, Benoit Favre, and Nicholas Robertson.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Background

This article is based on 8 years of collaborative resesarch with people with intellectual disability

HCI editorial record

First received on date. Revisions received on date, date, and date. Accepted by action-editor-name. Final manuscript received on date.

Notes

¹ https://www.texthelp.com/products/read-and-write-education/.

² https://www.ndis.gov.au/understanding/what-ndis

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this work comes from the Australian Research Council, through the Linkage Grant scheme and the Future Fellowship Scheme ([LP160100800 and FT190100855]).

Notes on contributors

Laurianne Sitbon

Laurianne Sitbon ([email protected]https://www.qut.edu.au/about/our-people/academic-profiles/l.sitbon) is a Human–Computer Interaction and Information Retrieval researcher with an interest in co-design, cognitive accessibility and semantics; she is Associate Professor in the School of Computer of the Queensland University of Technology.

Margot Brereton

Margot Brereton ([email protected]https://www.qut.edu.au/about/our-people/academic-profiles/m.brereton) is a Human–Computer Interaction researcher with an interest in co-design, humanitarian technologies, and tangible and connected interfaces; she is a Professor in the School of Computer Science of the Queensland University of Technology.

Filip Bircanin

Filip Bircanin ([email protected]https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=xoqhO48AAAAJ) is a Human–Computer Interaction researcher with an interest in co-design, intellectual disability and tangible interfaces; he is an padjunct lecturer in the School of Computer Science of the Queensland University of Technology.