Inquire publications

Video content creation offers vital opportunities for expression and participation, yet remains largely inaccessible to creators with sensory impairments, especially in low-resource settings. We conducted interviews with 20 video creators with visual and hearing impairments in Kenya to examine their tools, challenges, and collaborative practices. Our findings show that accessibility barriers and infrastructural limitations shape video creation as a staged, collaborative process involving trusted human partners and emerging AI tools. Across workflows, creators actively negotiated agency and trust, maintaining creative control while bridging sensory gaps. We discuss the need for flexible, interdependent collaboration models, inclusive human-AI workflows, and diverse storytelling practices. This work broadens accessibility research in HCI by examining how technology and social factors intersect in low-resource contexts, suggesting ways to better support disabled creators globally.

Recent advances in smartphone technology have elevated their potential as digital assistive technologies (AT) for blind or partially sighted (BPS) and deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) individuals. However, there is a gap in fully understanding the use of smartphones as AT and their impact on the quality of life (QoL) of BPS and DHH individuals. To address this gap, we conducted a mixed-methods longitudinal study over six months with 193 participants in Kenya. The study involved a baseline survey, smartphone digital skills training, and a follow-up survey and interviews to examine the impact of smartphones as AT. The findings emphasise the significant impact of smartphones on their quality of life, including impact on their identity and well-being, social inclusion and leisure, access to information and education, and material well-being. Building on the findings, we contribute an AT Impact Framework, which highlights the behaviours enabled by smartphones and their impact on the individual and their wider ecosystem. We discuss the applications of the AT Impact Framework to assess the impact on QoL outcomes of AT interventions and offer recommendations for policymakers, researchers, and designers.

In Ghana, people with communication challenges could benefit from gaze-based Augmented and Assistive Communication devices (AACs), widely used in countries with greater resources. However, there is limited evidence about the potential of such devices by people with communication disabilities in the Global South. Our study sought to evaluate the usability, identifying barriers and facilitators of adoption of a freely available Android-based eye-gaze AAC application called Look to Speak. The study included training of 10 local speech and language therapists and 15 people with communication difficulties. Our findings highlight how, despite some initial successes and the positive opinions of clients, caregivers and speech and language therapists the Look to Speak application largely failed to deliver substantial communication benefits to individual users. This was due to a combination of factors including the high cognitive load, design flaws of the application - such as the lack of optimization of the selection process depending on the chosen interaction mode, and lack of wheelchairs with adequate postural support, which are necessary for users to be able to successfully utilise the application. We contribute insights surrounding the mismatch between expectations and reality of gaze-base AACs, and considerations about the broader ecosystem required to support adoption and impact of such technologies in Ghana.

Background

Cross-sectional evidence suggests that access to essential mobility assistive products (MAPs) might be dependent on non-clinical factors. However, MAP use is better understood as a dynamic process wherein individuals pass through different states of MAP need and use. We aimed to test associations of demographic, socioeconomic, and social factors with transitions between MAP need and use states.

Methods

For this multistate modelling study, data were drawn from 13 years (May, 2006, to July, 2019) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a prospective cohort study. We included respondents aged 50–89 years who participated in at least two waves of data collection. We used multistate models to examine associations of demographic, socioeconomic, and social factors, including age, sex, education, employment, wealth, marital status, and help with activities of daily living (ADL), with transitions between three main states: no need for MAPs, unmet need for MAPs, and use of MAPs.

Findings

We used data collected from 12 080 respondents (6586 women and 5494 men). During follow-up, 5102 (42·2%) of participants had unmet MAP need and 3330 (27·6%) used MAPs. Women were more likely than men to transition from no need to unmet need (hazard ratio [HR] 1·49, 95% CI 1·38–1·60) and less likely to transition from unmet need to use (0·79, 0·72–0·86). We found an increase in risk of transitioning from no need to unmet need for each 1-year increase in age (1·06, 1·06–1·07), for those with low education level (1·34, 1·23–1·45), those with help with ADL (1·32, 1·16–1·49), and who were not employed (1·22, 1·07–1·40) or disabled (3·83, 2·98–4·93). Similarly, we found an increase in risk of transitioning unmet need to use for each 1-year increase in age (1·06, 1·05–1·06), for those with low education level (1·20, 1·10–1·31), and those with help with ADL (1·25, 1·13–1·38). Increasing wealth was associated with a reduced risk of transitioning from no need to unmet need (0·78, 0·74–0·81) and from unmet need to use (0·94, 0·89–0·99). Single people were more likely to transition from unmet need to use than partnered people (HR 1·21, 95% CI 1·10–1·33).

Interpretation

Women might be disproportionately likely to have unmet MAP needs, whereas other demographic, socioeconomic, and social factors are associated with high MAP need overall. Our findings directly support efforts towards expanding access to assistive products and identifying groups that could particularly benefit. As the first study of its kind to our knowledge, replication with other longitudinal datasets is needed.

Funding

UK Aid.

Purpose

Explicitly monitoring the need, use and satisfaction of assistive product (AP) provision is essential to support population health and healthy longevity in ageing/aged countries, like Korea. We present findings from the 2017 Korea National Disability Survey (NDS) on AP access and compare them to international averages, introducing Korea’s data into the wider coherence of global AP research.

Materials and methods

Using data from Korea’s 2017 NDS, surveying 91,405 individuals, we extracted and calculated AP access indicators, including needing, having, using and being satisfied with 76 unique APs, by functional difficulty and product type. We compared satisfaction and unmet need between the National Health Insurance System (NHIS) and alternative provision services.

Results

Prosthetics and orthotics had high rates of under-met need, and lower satisfaction rates, from 46.9% to 80.9%. Mobility APs overall had higher rates of under-met need. There was either low (<5%) or no reported need for most digital/technical APs. Among main products, those provided through the NHIS had lower unmet need (26.4%) than through alternative providers (63.1%), though satisfaction rates were similar (p < .001).

Conclusions

The Korean survey findings align with global averages calculated in the Global Report on Assistive Technology. Low reported needs for certain APs may reflect low awareness about how these products could benefit users, emphasizing the importance of data collection at each stage of the AP provision process. Recommendations to expand access to APs are given for people, personnel, provision, products, and policy.

Implications for rehabilitation

• Access to assistive products (APs) is an essential part of physical and occupational therapy services and rehabilitation. Monitoring population-level data on disability and AP access can inform policymakers about a key aspect of population health and healthy ageing, and demonstrate the need to expand access by including APs and associated services in primary/universal healthcare packages.
• Stratifying findings about AP access by type of functional difficulty and further by specific device helps identify the populations for whom needs are not being met. These domain-level and device-level indicators inform efforts to support specific groups within the population of people with disabilities, which has implications for how rehabilitation services are provisioned, targeted and made more accessible.

Jamie Danemayer & Myung-Joon Lim (2023)

Assistive technology in Korea: Findings from the 2017 National Disability Survey, Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology,

DOI: 10.1080/17483107.2023.2225565

The aim of this research was to undertake a Country Capacity Assessment (CCA) to inform a more integrated approach to Assistive Technology (AT) provision in England. The results aim to support policymakers in identifying actions to strengthen service delivery to better meet disabled people’s needs, improving outcomes for AT users and reducing inefficiencies in the current approach.

The research was undertaken from November 2022 to March 2023 and led by the Global Disability Innovation (GDI) Hub, which is the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Collaborating Centre on AT access, using WHO tools in the Assistive Technology Assessment (ATA) suite.

Suggested Citation: Austin, V, Patel, D, Danemayer, J, Mattick, K, Landre, A, Smitova, M, Bandukda, M, Healy, A, Chockalingam, N, Bell D, and Holloway, C; Assistive Technology Changes Lives: an assessment of AT need and capacity in England; Cabinet Office, HMG; 2023

Ninety percent of the 1.2 billion people who need assistive technology (AT) do not have access. Information seeking practices directly impact the ability of AT producers, procurers, and providers (AT professionals) to match a user's needs with appropriate AT, yet the AT marketplace is interdisciplinary and fragmented, complicating information seeking. We explored common limitations experienced by AT professionals when searching information to develop solutions for a diversity of users with multi-faceted needs. Through Template Analysis of 22 expert interviews, we find current search engines do not yield the necessary information, or appropriately tailor search results, impacting individuals’ awareness of products and subsequently their availability and the overall effectiveness of AT provision. We present value-based design implications to improve functionality of future AT-information seeking platforms, through incorporating smarter systems to support decision-making and need-matching whilst ensuring ethical standards for disability fairness remain.

Our wider plan on locally-centred action on Manual Wheelchair Provision 

1. Local collaborative direction-setting group development 

Enabling Friday Vision 

2. Situational Analysis focused on a subset of AT (Manual Wheelchairs) and targeted rich data collection 

• Population/regional level investigation
• Individual level journey mapping (of people and products)
• Local Innovation Pathway Identification 

3. Upcoming Actions based on No.1 & 2 

• Local Innovation across product-service elements
• Advocacy
• Global peer linked work (educational across stakeholders, live labs, innovation coaching) 

4. Expansion and iteration of local collaborative process across other AT sectors