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Toward Softerware: Enabling Personalization of Interactive Data Representations for Users With Disabilities
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
|September 12, 2025
Summary
Softerware empowers users with disabilities to customize interfaces, addressing access friction. Success requires accessible defaults, interoperability, persistence, and user effort consideration.
Area of Science:
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Accessibility Research
- Inclusive Design
Background:
- Accessible design often creates barriers for some users, leading to access friction.
- Existing systems lack user agency for meaningful interface customization for individuals with disabilities.
Purpose of the Study:
- Introduce 'softerware,' a design approach empowering users with disabilities to adapt interfaces.
- Explore customization options for data visualizations to mitigate accessibility barriers.
Main Methods:
- Assembled 195 data visualization customization options targeting user disabilities.
- Developed a prototype applying a subset of these options.
- Conducted practitioner interviews and a design probe study with accessibility professionals.
Main Results:
- Observed access frictions between participant designs and their needs.
- Identified key requirements for softerware success: accessible defaults, interoperability, persistence, and user effort-outcome ratio.
Conclusions:
- Softerware offers a promising approach to enhance user agency and reduce access friction.
- Future systems must prioritize accessible defaults and user-centered design principles for effective softerware implementation.
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