Kristen Shinohara
I am an Associate Professor in the School of Information at the Rochester Institute of Technology where I co-direct the CAIR Lab. My research focuses on the design of technologies usable by people with disabilities, making design practices accessible, supporting students with disabilities in graduate school, and teaching accessibility in computing. I have NSF funded projects investigating accessibility issues and experiences for graduate students with disabilities, and facilitating teaching modules to infuse accessibility into computing courses. I received my PhD from the University of Washington Information School in 2017, where I was advised by Jacob O. Wobbrock and co-advised by Wanda Pratt.
I developed the Design for Social Accessibility (DSA) perspective, which includes consideration for social situations experienced by people with disabilities. The DSA perspective frames tenets for design and inlcudes a set of method cards to help designers engage in a design process sensitive to disabled user needs and preferences. Special thanks to Stephen Cady and Nayeri Jacobo for their help in preparing these tools for designers to download and use for free: Download DSA Method Cards Here
Design
Accessible Design
Work in these projects focus on the accessibility of different aspects of the design thinking process (including approaches such as user-centered design), toward learning what can be done to improve accessibility of design tools and techniques.
Supported by the Google Scholar Award
Teach
Teaching Accessibility in Computing
We infuse accessibility into computing courses, focusing on: increasing student awareness and learning of accessibility topics and skills, and ensuring teaching materials and content are readily usable by instructors.
Supported by NSF #2121549
Empower
Empower Disabled Graduate Students in STEM
We investigate how graduate students with disabilities manage inaccessibility in research. This work focuses on graduate students in STEM fields pursuing their doctoral degrees.
Supported by NSF #1926209; RIT Grant Writer's Bootcamp
Recent Papers
Emily Kuang, Selah Bellscheidt, Di Pham, Kristen Shinohara, Catherine M. Baker, Yasmine N. Elglaly. 2024. Mapping Accessibility Assignments into Core Computer Science Topics: An Empirical Study with Interviews and Surveys of Instructors and Students. In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, To Appear.
Emily Kuang, Minghao Li, Mingming Fan, Kristen Shinohara. 2024. Enhancing UX Evaluation Through Collaboration with Conversational AI Assistants: Effects of Proactive Dialogue and Timing. In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, To Appear.
[Best Paper Award] Yasmine Elglaly, Catherine Baker, Anne Ross and Kristen Shinohara. 2024. Beyond HCI: The Need for Accessibility Across the CS Curriculum. In Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (SIGCSE 2024). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 324–330.
Emily Kuang, Ehsan Jahangirzadeh Soure, Mingming Fan, Jian Zhao, and Kristen Shinohara. 2023. Collaboration with Conversational AI Assistants for UX Evaluation: Questions and How to Ask them (Voice vs. Text). In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 116, 1–15.
[Honorable Mention, top 5%] Laleh Nourian, Kristen Shinohara, and Garreth W. Tigwell. 2023. Understanding Discussions Around Culture Within Courses Covering Topics on Accessibility and Disability at U.S. Universities. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 221, 1–14.
Franklin Mingzhe Li, Lotus Zhang, Maryam Bandukda, Abigale Stangl, Kristen Shinohara, Leah Findlater, and Patrick Carrington. 2023. Understanding Visual Arts Experiences of Blind People. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 60, 1–21.