Research and Development Projects Related to Accessibility

Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both basic and applied research in computer science and software engineering. Among its goals are enhancing the user experience on computing devices and inventing novel computing technologies. Many of its projects will make the computer easier to see, hear, and interact with.

Following are just a few of the research areas being pursued by Microsoft that enhance accessibility and make using the computer easier. Find out about more on the Microsoft Research Web site.

Human Computer Interaction

Research on human-computer interaction (HCI) plays a central role across multiple teams at Microsoft Research. Researcher's work is focused on advancing the way users interact with computing devices. This includes search, access, and information management, the display of complex data and information, user modeling and activity recognition, efficient input and interaction, the role of automation and the coupling of intelligent systems with direct manipulation.

Areas of focus include:

• Adaptive Systems and Interaction

The Adaptive Systems and Interaction group (ASI) pursues research on automated reasoning, adaptation, and human-computer interaction. One area of focus is pursuing the development of new input devices and sensors that promise to provide users with new abilities to directly manipulate objects and visualizations. Ongoing work in this area includes extending mouse and keyboard with touch sensors, enabling systems to sense contact from the user's hands. Among many Adaptive Systems teams are:
• Conversational Systems. Pursuing the long-term dream of fluid conversation between people and computers. The Conversational Architectures and the Persona projects center on exploration of principles, architectures, and prototypes for supporting such conversational dialog.
• Novel Input Devices and Sensors. Pursuing the development of new input devices and sensors that promise to provide users with new abilities to directly manipulate objects and visualizations, and to support the user modeling work with additional evidence about context. Ongoing work in this area includes extending mouse and keyboard with touch sensors, enabling systems to sense contact from the user's hands.


• Speech Technology

Microsoft Research has a group in Redmond and another in Beijing working together to improve spoken language technologies. The main goal is to build applications that make computers available everywhere. The Asia team is focusing on automatic speech recognition to enable computers to facilitate access to data, help create content, and perform tasks; speech synthesis to enable computers to speak with a human-sounding voice, to respond and provide information, and to read; spoken-document retrieval and processing to enrich communication between people, like converting voice-mail into text; signal processing to improve the conditioning of signals, change speech signal parameters like pitch, speaking rate, voice characteristics seamlessly.


• Natural Language Processing

Natural Language Processing researchers are working to design and build software that will analyze, understand, and generate languages that humans use naturally, so that eventually you will be able to address your computer as though you were addressing another person.

Hardware Development

Hardware Development researchers focus on developing devices that will connect computer users more intimately, naturally, and efficiently with their computing environment. The devices range from large displays to wearable devices to micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS).

Researchers are currently working on devices which will allow novel forms of input, such as a gesture, a wink, a voice command, or a pen. They're also exploring new ways to use the keyboard, for instance, sliders set between the keypads of a split keyboard that will give you the ability to scroll or move around the document without lifting your hands to grab your mouse. They've researched motion detectors that can increase type size when you move your head closer to the screen or rotate a graphic when you turn your head from side-to-side.

Find out about the wide array of hardware products available right now from Microsoft that enhance computing comfort.