The Vision Science of Digital Readability: Community-Building Workshop

Friday, May 17, 2024, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm, Snowy Egret

Organizers: Dr. Nilsu Atilgan, The Readability Consortium; Dr. Ben D. Sawyer, University of Central Florida; Dr. Steven Clapp, University of Central Florida

Speakers: Dr. Denis Pelli, New York University; Dr. Ben Wolfe, University of Toronto Mississauga; Dr. Shaun Wallace, University of Rhode Island; Dr. Minjung Kim, Meta; Dr. Hilary Palmen, Google; Dr. Yingzi Xiong, Johns Hopkins University

A community of scientific inquiry is emerging around reading in the digital interface. Academic disciplines ranging from vision science to computer science are finding it central to their work to have a mechanistic and applied understanding of reading processes. The research is highly distributed, and this diversity is both valuable and challenging for each researcher to build and maintain an overview of emerging significant research knowledge and trends.

This workshop is a space to facilitate this interdisciplinary research scheme. Participants; vision scientists, industry partners and computer scientists, will discuss how to approach digital reading problems and solutions, exchange experimental knowledge and effective perspectives on application challenges. These discussions can open up new avenues for each research cohort and help understand the problem in a more holistic perspective. This workshop will also promote cross-cultural studies through emphasizing readability research beyond English and the Latin writing system.

The Readability Consortium (TRC) is driving this workshop, we were formed in 2021 to progress reading research methodology and practice. We are motivated to act as a catalyst to facilitate the existence of a broader reading research community that progresses: Understanding reading processes and applying new technologies in ways that will enable people globally to reach their full reading potential, including, but not limited to, people with dyslexia and low vision.

Schedule (3 hours)

Opening remarks (15 minutes)
Lightning talks (90 minutes)
Coffee break (15 minutes)
Small group discussions -for creation of future research directions and guidelines- (20 minutes)
Whole group discussion and closing remarks (40 minutes)

For more information please visit the Digital Readability Workshop website.