Accessible Text Tools for People with Cognitive Impairments and Non-Native Readers: Challenges and Opportunities

Many people have problems with reading, which limits their ability to participate in society. This paper explores tools that make text more accessible. For this, we interviewed experts, who proposed tools for different stakeholders and scenarios. Important stakeholders of such tools are people with cognitive impairments and non-native readers. Frequently mentioned scenarios are public administration, the medical domain, and everyday life. The tools proposed by experts support stakeholders by improving how text is compressed, expanded, reviewed, and experienced. In a survey of stakeholders, we confirm that the scenarios are relevant and that the proposed tools appear helpful to them. We provide the Accessible Text Framework to help researchers understand how the different tools can be combined and discuss how individual tools can be implemented. The investigation shows that accessible text tools are an important HCI+AI challenge that a large number of people can benefit from.