Ever since I took computer science classes in high school, I've loved programming. It wasn't until my final year of undergrad that I figured out what it was about programming I loved. It was being able to design and create applications that people will find useful, helpful, and enjoy using.
Thanks to a friend of mine, I discovered the HCI research area and pursued it in grad school. And thanks to my supervisor, I discovered usability engineering and accessibility. These turned out to be exactly what I had hoped to work on and learn more about.
Accessibility
Ever since I started going to University of Saskatchewan, I have started learning more about accessible computing. I took a course on accessible computing, became the teaching assistant for the course, and created Accessibility Demonstration Experiences (ADEs) to introduce various topics within accessibility. I even published several papers on it.
In 2010, I started a project on creating alternative text or textual descriptions for images. After working on it for 8 months, it was decided that I would change my thesis topic to this project. Here is an abstract of the work from my thesis proposal:
A picture may be worth a thousand words but what might those words be? How do we go about finding those words? Images are often used to convey information, supplement textual content, and/or add visual appeal to documents. Unless the user can see the image and properly interpret it, the user may not receive the same information. While containers exist for providing alternative text, they are rarely used. When they are used, the alternative text is not informative. While guidance currently exists regarding which containers to use in order to provide alternative text, there is little guidance available regarding what information to include and how to compose alternative text. The purpose of this work is to establish an approach for identifying the information being communicated within an image and provide guidance on how to produce informative alternative text.
I have also created a prototype tool that applies the approach. It still needs a lot of work but it has taught me a lot about how to design it and what improvements still need to be made in the approach itself. I'm looking forward to all of the research and work that goes with this project.
Usability Engineering and HCI
My original thesis project involved creating a usability engineering tool to help usability engineers do their job. Information regarding the software application being developed would be recorded as well as analyzed with a focus on usability of the resulting application. The tool can be used by usability engineers as well as the rest of the development team.
The tool is a part of the PUF framework being developed by the USERLab at the University of Saskatchewan. Currently, I was focusing on analyzing requirements management tools, CASE tools, and usability engineering tools to determine the features and functionalities that usability engineers may need to perform their job.
Accessible Computing
Accessible Computing is a course currently offered at the University of Saskatchewan since 2007. The course looks at various accessibility issues that arise from use by people with varying abilities.
For the purpose of the course, Accessibility Demonstration Experiences (ADEs) were created to introduce people to the issues that arise and the tools available for helping with accessibility.
I had taken the course in 2007 and the result was the creation of an ADE and a paper publication. Since then, I have become the TA for the course. I maintain the existing ADEs as well as create new ones.
Publications (in Chronological Order)
Tang, L., Fourney, D., Huang, F., and Carter, J.A. 2008. Secondary Encoding. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 52nd Annual Meeting. New York, NY.
Tang, L., Fourney, D., and Carter, J. 2011. Accessibility Demonstration Experiences (ADEs). In The 26th Annual International Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference (CSUN), San Diego, California, USA, 14-19 March 2011.
Tang, L. and Carter, J. 2011. Alternative Text for Images. In The 26th Annual International Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference (CSUN), San Diego, California, USA, 14-19 March 2011.
Tang, L., Fourney, D., and Carter, J. 2011. Experiencing Accessibility Issues and Options. In 14th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII), Orlando, Florida, USA, 9-14 July 2011.
Tang, L. and Carter, J. 2011. Verbalizing Images. In 14th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII), Orlando, Florida, USA, 9-14 July 2011.
Tang, L. and Carter, J. 2011. Communicating Image Content. In 55th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES), Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 19-23 September 2011.
Presentations (in Chronological Order)
Tang, L. 2008. Secondary Encoding. Presentation presented at Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 52nd Annual Meeting. New York, NY. September 2008.
Tang, L. 2010. Guidance for Creating Alt-Text for Images. Presentation presented to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC35 User Interface at the Meeting of the User Interface Accessibility Working Group, Venice, Italy, August 2010.
Tang, L. 2011. Creating Alternative Text: Prototype Tool Evaluation Results. Presentation presented to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC35 User Interface at the Meeting of the User Interface Accessibility Working Group, Bellevue, Washington, USA, February 2011.
Tang, L. 2011. Accessibility Demonstration Experiences (ADEs). Presentation presented at The 26th Annual International Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference (CSUN), San Diego, California, USA, March 2011.
Tang, L. 2011. Alternative Text for Images. Presentation presented at The 26th Annual International Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference (CSUN), San Diego, California, USA, 14-19 March 2011.
Tang, L. 2011. Verbalizing Images. Poster session at the 14th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Orlando, Florida, USA, July 2011.