Beyond the Blueprint

My Experience with Accessibility

Nivyan Lakhani

[email protected]

Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, Faculty of Brain Sciences

University College London

London

April 2nd, 2024

Presentation Materials

For a copy of these slides, please scan the QR code or visit the link:

QR Code linking to slides

https://nivyan.xyz/stemm

About Me

[Who am I?]
Nivyan Lakhani Avatar
Hi, I'm Niv!

Education

I'm interested in artificial and biological neural networks. I also like linguistics, psychology, statistics, and computation.

Interests

I like many things. Currently orcas, typography, geoguessr, the Julia programming language and Borges spark the most joy inside me.

1.3

Presentation Structure

[Nor13]

Accessibility is a two-system interaction:

  1. User System: Human agent.
  2. Target System: Application / Environment interface.

This presentation will deal with both. High accessibility implies low impedance to information/control flow between these systems.

Anatomy of a Problem Statement

[WCAG22]
I

User Context & AT

Who is affected? What assistive technology (AT) or interaction method is used?

II

User Goal / Task

What specific action is the user trying to perform?

III

System Interface / Component

Where in the target system does the interaction happen?

IV

The Barrier / Mismatch

What specific obstacle prevents or hinders task completion (the incompatibility)?

Case Study: Talon

Repetitive Strain Injury ->

No Input from Keyboard / Mouse ->

How do I code / write / browse the web / typeset math [...]?

What Can We Learn from Talon?

[TLH:TAL25]
  1. Acts as a wrapper, no need to reinvent the wheel
  2. Jugaad / Innovation with existing materials
  3. Extensible and Open
  4. Can I do it vs. Can I do it well?
  5. Collective intelligence solves niche problems faster.
Talon Community Logo
Figure 1: The Talon Community Logo

Case Study: Anki

I like to walk ∧

I currently have exams

I walk ⇒ ¬(revise for exams)

What Can We Learn from Anki?

[ANK:ANK25]
  1. Acts as a wrapper, no need to reinvent the wheel
  2. Jugaad / Innovation with existing materials
  3. Extensible and Open
  4. Can I do it vs. Can I do it well?
  5. Collective intelligence solves niche problems faster.
AnkiDroid Logo
Figure 2: The AnkiDroid Logo [AKD:AKD25]

References

[Ank25a]
AnkiDroid Contributors. AnkiDroid. https://ankidroid.org/. Accessed: 2025-04-02. Android client for Anki. Source code: https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-Android. 2025.
[Ank25b]
Ankitects. Anki - Powerful, intelligent flashcards. https://apps.ankiweb.net/. Accessed: 2025-04-02. Developed by Damien Elmes and contributors. 2025.
[Nor13]
Donald A. Norman. The Design of Everyday Things. Revised and Expanded. Classic text on human-system interaction, usability, and the 'gulfs' of execution/evaluation relevant to the two-system concept. Basic Books, 2013.
[Tal25]
Talonhub. Talon Community Repository. https://github.com/talonhub/community. Accessed: 2025-04-02. 2025.
[Wor24]
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2. W3C Recommendation. The latest version of WCAG as of 2025. 2024. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/.