Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy.
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
Sci Rep. 2024 Jul 13;14(1):16162. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-66725-3.
The Web has become an essential resource but is not yet accessible to everyone. Assistive technologies and innovative, intelligent frameworks, for example, those using conversational AI, help overcome some exclusions. However, some users still experience barriers. This paper shows how a human-centered approach can shed light on technology limitations and gaps. It reports on a three-step process (focus group, co-design, and preliminary validation) that we adopted to investigate how people with speech impairments, e.g., dysarthria, browse the Web and how barriers can be reduced. The methodology helped us identify challenges and create new solutions, i.e., patterns for Web browsing, by combining voice-based conversational AI, customized for impaired speech, with techniques for the visual augmentation of web pages. While current trends in AI research focus on more and more powerful large models, participants remarked how current conversational systems do not meet their needs, and how it is important to consider each one's specificity for a technology to be called inclusive.
网络已成为不可或缺的资源，但并非每个人都能访问。辅助技术和创新的智能框架，例如使用会话式 AI 的框架，有助于克服一些排斥。然而，一些用户仍然存在障碍。本文展示了以人为中心的方法如何揭示技术的局限性和差距。它报告了我们采用的三步骤过程（焦点小组、共同设计和初步验证），以调查语音障碍（如口吃）者如何浏览网页，以及如何减少障碍。该方法帮助我们确定挑战并创建新的解决方案，即将针对语音障碍者定制的基于语音的会话式 AI 与网页的视觉增强技术相结合，从而为网页浏览设计模式。虽然人工智能研究的当前趋势侧重于越来越强大的大型模型，但参与者指出，当前的会话系统如何无法满足他们的需求，以及考虑每个人的特异性对于一项技术被称为包容性是多么重要。
