Sighted and blind and low vision (BLV) creators alike use videos to communicate with broad audiences. Yet, video editing remains inaccessible to BLV creators. Our formative study revealed that current video editing tools make it difficult to access the visual content, assess the visual quality, and efficiently navigate the timeline. We present AVscript, an accessible text-based video editor. AVscript enables users to edit their video using a script that embeds the video’s visual content, visual errors (e.g., dark or blurred footage), and speech. Users can also efficiently navigate between scenes and visual errors or locate objects in the frame or spoken words of interest. A comparison study (N=12) showed that AVscript significantly lowered BLV creators’ mental demands while increasing confidence and independence in video editing. We further demonstrate the potential of AVscript through an exploratory study (N=3) where BLV creators edited their own footage.

Informational videos serve as a crucial source for explaining conceptual and procedural knowledge to novices and experts alike. When producing informational videos, editors edit videos by overlaying text/images or trimming footage to enhance the video quality and make it more engaging. However, video editing can be difficult and time-consuming, especially for novice video editors who often struggle with expressing and implementing their editing ideas. To address this challenge, we first explored how multimodality—natural language (NL) and sketching, which are natural modalities humans use for expression—can be utilized to support video editors in expressing video editing ideas. We gathered 176 multimodal expressions of editing commands from 10 video editors, which revealed the patterns of use of NL and sketching in describing edit intents. Based on the findings, we present ExpressEdit, a system that enables editing videos via NL text and sketching on the video frame. Powered by LLM and vision models, the system interprets (1) temporal, (2) spatial, and (3) operational references in an NL command and spatial references from sketching. The system implements the interpreted edits, which then the user can iterate on. An observational study (N=10) showed that ExpressEdit enhanced the ability of novice video editors to express and implement their edit ideas. The system allowed participants to perform edits more efficiently and generate more ideas by generating edits based on user’s multimodal edit commands and supporting iterations on the editing commands. This work offers insights into the design of future multimodal interfaces and AI-based pipelines for video editing.

How-to videos are rich in information—they not only give instructions but also provide justifications or descriptions. People seek different information to meet their needs, and identifying different types of information present in the video can improve access to the desired knowledge. Thus, we present a taxonomy of information types in how-to videos. Through an iterative open coding of 4k sentences in 48 videos, 21 information types under 8 categories emerged. The taxonomy represents diverse information types that instructors provide beyond instructions. We first show how our taxonomy can serve as an analytical framework for video navigation systems. Then, we demonstrate through a user study (n=9) how type-based navigation helps participants locate the information they needed. Finally, we discuss how the taxonomy enables a wide range of video-related tasks, such as video authoring, viewing, and analysis. To allow researchers to build upon our taxonomy, we release a dataset of 120 videos containing 9.9k sentences labeled using the taxonomy.

Tutorial videos are a popular help source for learning feature-rich software. However, getting quick answers to questions about tutorial videos is difficult. We present an automated approach for responding to tutorial questions. By analyzing 633 questions found in 5,944 video comments, we identified different question types and observed that users frequently described parts of the video in questions. We then asked participants (N=24) to watch tutorial videos and ask questions while annotating the video with relevant visual anchors. Most visual anchors referred to UI elements and the application workspace. Based on these insights, we built AQuA, a pipeline that generates useful answers to questions with visual anchors. We demonstrate this for Fusion 360, showing that we can recognize UI elements in visual anchors and generate answers using GPT-4 augmented with that visual information and software documentation. An evaluation study (N=16) demonstrates that our approach provides better answers than baseline methods.

Wearable technology has transformed sports analytics, offering new dimensions in enhancing player experience. Yet, many solutions involve cumbersome setups that inhibit natural motion. In tennis, existing products require sensors on the racket or dominant arm, causing distractions and discomfort. We propose Silent Impact, a novel and user-friendly system that analyzes tennis shots using a sensor placed on the passive arm. Collecting Inertial Measurement Unit sensor data from 20 recreational tennis players, we developed neural networks that exclusively utilize passive arm data to detect and classify six shots, achieving a classification accuracy of 88.2% and a detection F1 score of 86.0%, comparable to the dominant arm. These models were then incorporated into an end-to-end prototype, which records passive arm motion through a smartwatch and displays a summary of shots on a mobile app. User study (N=10) showed that participants felt less burdened physically and mentally using Silent Impact on the passive arm. Overall, our research establishes the passive arm as an effective, comfortable alternative for tennis shot analysis, advancing user-friendly sports analytics.