Department of Computer Science: "Context-Aware Systems to Empower People with Disabilities"

Description

Yuhang Zhao, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will give a talk titled "Context-Aware Systems to Empower People with Disabilities" for the Department of Computer Science.

Abstract:

People with disabilities are marginalized by inaccessible social infrastructure and technology, facing various challenges in all aspects of their life. Conventional assistive technologies commonly provide generic solutions to a certain disability population and do not consider users' individual and context differences, leading to high abandonment rate. Yuhang Zhao's research seeks to thoroughly understand the experiences and needs of people with disabilities and create intelligent assistive technologies adaptive to user contexts, including their abilities, environments, and intents, providing effective, unobtrusive support tailored to user needs. In this talk, Zhao will discuss how she leverages state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and eye-tracking technologies to design and develop context-aware assistive technologies. She will divide user context into external factors (e.g., surrounding environments) and internal factors (e.g., intents, abilities) and present her work on scene-aware, intent-aware, and ability-aware systems, respectively. Specifically, she will discuss: (1) CookAR, a wearable scene-aware AR system that distinguishes and augments the affordance of kitchen tools (e.g., knife blade vs. knife handle) for low-vision users to facilitate safe and efficient interactions; (2) GazePrompt, an eye-tracking-based, intent-aware system that supports low-vision users in reading; and (3) FocusView, a customizable video interface that allows users with ADHD to tailor video presentations to their sensory abilities. Zhao will conclude her talk by highlighting future research directions toward artificial-intelligence-powered context-aware systems for people with disabilities.